ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,359,748, issued on July 15, was assigned to AISAN KOGYO K.K. (Obu, Japan).
"EGR valve" was invented by Mamoru Yoshioka (Susono, Japan), Shinji Kawai (Gifu, Japan) and Kazumasa Nakashima (Nagoya, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "This EGR valve includes: a valve seat and a valve element provided in a flow passage of a housing; a valve shaft that moves the valve element relative to the valve seat; a step motor that drives the valve shaft together with the valve element; a bearing that drivably supports the valve shaft; a seal member having a lip part adjacent to the bearing and contacting the valve shaft to seal between the housing and ...