Patent 7717049 was granted and assigned to Groz-Beckert on May, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A gripper (3) for a tufting machine comprises a gripper body (9) having a cutout (22) for a cutting insert (10), said cutting insert preferably consisting of a hard metal. Connecting means acting in a form-closed manner are provided for the connection of the cutting insert (10) with the gripper body (9). In their simplest embodiment, said connecting means are formed by the deformation regions (37, 38) that are provided on the gripper body (9) and that reach around matching cutouts (33, 34) of the cutting insert (10).