ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,441,238, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Adeia Guides Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).
"Contextual vehicle horn" was invented by Aldis Sipolins (Somerville, Mass.), Tao Chen (Palo Alto, Calif.) and Toshiro Ozawa (Irvine, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An audible output of a vehicle is controlled based on a variety of driving characteristics and ambient conditions. In response to receiving an indication of a triggering of an activator of a horn of a vehicle, the system determines a driving characteristic of the vehicle based on vehicle sensor data. Then, based on the driving characteristic(s) determined, and/or based on the ambient cond...