Patent ID: 6367296
Filing Date: 2002-04-09
Classification: E05B,G07C,Y10S,Y10T

Abstract:
Electrically locked/unlocked lock for a motor vehicle door, comprising:a) a forked latch intended to interact with a striker; b) a pawl which locks the latch in a closed position and which can adopt an â€œescapedâ€  position in which the pawl no longer acts on the latch; c) a manually operated latch-release mechanism for releasing the latch, including an outside control member which, in use, is mechanically connected to an exterior door handle of the motor vehicle door and which can undergo an actuating movement in response to actuation of the exterior door handle by a user, and which, in an unlocked condition of the lock, can, during the actuating movement of the outside control member, act on the pawl to bring the pawl into said â€œescapedâ€  position; d) an electromechanical locking/unlocking device which is mechanically coupled to the latch-release mechanism for setting the lock selectively in a locked condition in which the outside control member is unable to act on the pawl, or to an unlocked condition in which the outside control member is able to act on the pawl, the electromechanical locking/unlocking device including an electric device for actuating from the outside which reacts to an outside unlocking signal, so as to set the lock into the unlocked condition; e) an electronic recognition device capable of producing said outside unlocking signal upon reception of an appropriate control signal from, for example, a remote control or an appropriate electronic tag device worn or carried by the owner of the vehicle or by an authorized user; wherein the manually operated latch-release mechanism comprises an energy accumulation device which includes a spring means and which is interposed between said outside control member and said pawl in such a way that when the lock is in the locked condition, said spring means stores up energy by being stressed by said outside control member during the actuating movement of said outside control member in response to actuation of said exterior door handles and so that when the lock passes into the unlocked condition in response to said outside unlocking signal roughly at the end of the actuating travel of said outside control member, the energy stored up in said spring means is released and the energy accumulation device causes said pawl to move into the â€œescapedâ€  position.