ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,552,424, issued on Feb. 17, was assigned to Thales Management & Services Deutschland GmbH (Ditzingen, Germany).
"Rail contact element and drop off detection unit" was invented by Thomas Gebert (Bretzfeld-Bitzfeld, Germany), Michael Becker (Sersheim, Germany), Rainer Klemm (Steinheim, Germany) and Ingo Rath (Stuttgart, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A rail contact element for drop off detection is disclosed, wherein the rail contact element is mountable to a rail and includes a spring element, a main body which holds the spring element and an optical fiber. The spring element is in a tension state or in a relax state depending on ...