Single-action egress lock for a sliding door

An openable and closable door arrangement for a doorway, comprising:

• an upright sliding door positioned for generally solely horizontal movement between opened and closed positions relative to the doorway;
• an activating handle having a lever and being mounted on one side of the door for controlling opening and closing movement thereof, said activating handle being pivotally supported on said door for swinging movement about a substantially horizontal pivot axis which extends transverse to a face of the door, said activating handle having a vertical orientation and being angularly swingably moveable through an angular extent;
• a locking mechanism supported on said door and including a vertically elongate locking bolt supported on the door for vertical sliding movement, said locking bolt having an end portion which projects outwardly beyond the door for engagement with an adjacent stationary structure of the doorway when the door is in the closed position and the locking bolt is in a locking position;
• a manually accessible and manually moveable actuator disposed adjacent said one side of the door and interconnected to said locking mechanism to prevent actuation of the locking bolt;
• a motion transfer mechanism connected between said activating handle and said locking mechanism such that an application of a manually-applied generally sidewardly-directed horizontally oriented opening force solely against said activating handle swings the activating handle from said vertical orientation into an end position to cause retraction of the locking bolt into an unlocking position with continued application of said opening force to said activating handle effecting opening of the sliding door;
• wherein application of a closing force opposite to said opening force against the activating handle by a person positioned adjacent said one side of said door closes but does not lock said sliding door when said sliding door is in said closed position;
• said locking mechanism includes a slide mechanism supported for vertical slidable displacement between locking and unlocking positions, said slide mechanism being connected to said locking bolt, and a spring interconnected to the slide mechanism for urging the locking bolt toward the locking position;
• said locking mechanism including a rotary lock member supported for pivoting movement between locked and unlocked positions and drivingly interconnected to said manually moveable actuator;
• said locking mechanism including a latch movable between latched and unlatched position and cooperating between the rotary lock member and the slide mechanism to lock the slide mechanism and said locking bolt in their unlocking positions when the rotary lock member is in its unlocked position;
• and
• said locking mechanism including a motion transfer linkage operatively interconnected between said slide mechanism and said rotary lock member which automatically returns said rotary lock member to said unlocked position whenever said slide mechanism is moved from its locking position to its unlocking position.