US Patent Issued to Toyota Research Institute, Toyota Jidosha on March 17 for "Container lifting devices and methods for lifting containers" (California Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,577,090, issued on March 17, was assigned to Toyota Research Institute Inc. (Los Altos, Calif.) and Toyota Jidosha K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Container lifting devices and methods for lifting containers" was invented by Lukas Sebastian Kaul (Mountain View, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods and devices for picking up containers using a lifting-container device are disclosed. The container-lifting device may include a lifting fork, a friction contact surface, and a passive lifting mechanism. The passive lifting mechanism is coupled to the lifting fork and the friction contact surface on the two ends. The friction contact surface i...