Patent ID: 8434235

Claim:
A utility knife blade release and locking mechanism comprising: a blade locking ball slide having at least one pocket formed thereon, at least one locking ball mounted alongside said ball slide, said ball slide slidably mounted in a blade carrier for sliding translation relative to said blade carrier, said blade carrier adapted to hold a blade having at least one ball receiving aperture therein alongside said at least one locking ball so as to sandwich said at least one locking ball between the blade when held in said blade carrier and said ball slide, said ball slide positionable into ball locking and ball unlocking positions, said at least one pocket mis-aligned with said at least one locking ball when said ball slide is in said ball locking position so that said at least one locking ball is held in registry into the at least one ball receiving aperture of the blade when held in said blade carrier, and wherein said at least one pocket is aligned with said at least one locking ball when said ball slide is in said ball unlocking position so that said at least one locking ball is received into said at least one pocket, whereby said at least one locking ball is released from the at least one aperture in the blade when held in said blade carrier so that the blade is unlocked and removable from said blade carrier, a selectively positionable switch slide retainer positionable into a ball slide engaging position and a ball slide disengaged position, wherein in said ball slide engaging position said switch slide retainer engages said ball slide so as to bias the position of said at least one pocket into said ball unlocking position from said ball locking position.