ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,629, issued on April 15, was assigned to 3M Innovative Properties Co. (St. Paul, Minn.).

"Method, data set and sensored mixer to sense a property of a liquid" was invented by Benjamin Munstermann (Duisburg, Germany), Knut Schumacher (Neuss, Germany), Gunter Zilligen (Grevenbroich, Germany), Martin Stottmeister (Neuss, Germany), Robert Bialluch (Willich, Germany), Michael Bahners (Neuss, Germany), Thomas Keller (Neuss, Germany), Peter Orda (Remscheid, Germany), Jorg Hahn (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany), Harald Westkamp (Hattingen, Germany), Andreas Backes (Kaarst-Buttgen, Germany), Waleri Wischnepolski (Neuss, Germany) and David Rudek (Dusseldorf, Germany).

According to the abstr...