The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 29, 2003
Filed:
Jun. 01, 2001
Tatsuaki Kawase, Miyagi-ken, JP;
Alps Electric Co., Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
The present invention provides a composite operation switch that provides for more functions without increasing the number of switches and expanding its size, and provides satisfactory operability for switch selection operation. The composite operation switch includes: a housing that has a hollow ring-shape area and is provided with fixed contacts on an inside bottom face of the ring-shape area; a first rotor that is rotatably mounted in the housing and provided with movable contacts, which, upon rotation, contact or separate from the fixed contacts; a second rotor that is mounted in the first rotor and rotates together with the first rotor; and a multi-direction operation switch placed inside the hollow ring-shape area of the housing, wherein the second rotor is mounted in the first rotor so as to be vertically movable, and in the vicinity of the housing, a detecting switch is provided that detects a vertical movement position of the second rotor and outputs a signal for switching the types of selection functions of the multi-direction operation switch.