ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,606,122, issued on April 21, was assigned to ZF AUTOMOTIVE GERMANY GMBH (Alfdorf, Germany).
"Belt retractor" was invented by Adrian Ciurea (Schwabisch Gmund, Germany) and Alexander Stephan (Schwabisch Gmund, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to a belt retractor (10) for a vehicle seatbelt, comprising a rotatable retractor shaft (14) for a belt reel (16) and bearings (18) disposed at the two axial ends of the retractor shaft (14). One of the bearings (18) has a first cylindrical bearing surface (30) and a second cylindrical bearing surface (32) axially offset against the first bearing surface (30). The bearing ...