Originally Posted by John E
The cited patent (1992-1994) is 25 to 30 years too late for the mechanism pictured.
The fact that there are coincidentally 5 click-stops on the pie plate and 5 cogs on the freewheel perhaps confuses the issue a bit.
Maybe that allows you to decide which cog you want to be on when it goes from low to high range, like when I'm in 5th gear and reach a certian speed I want to switch to the higher range, ie 10th gear. Does that make sense? I guess so if you want you can go directly from 2nd gear to "7th" gear.