US Patent Issued to Alps Alpine on July 1 for "Torque generation device" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,345,311, issued on July 1, was assigned to Alps Alpine Co. Ltd. (Japan).

"Torque generation device" was invented by Yoshihiro Kuge (Miyagi-ken, Japan), Kazunari Takahashi (Miyagi-ken, Japan) and Misuzu Takahashi (Miyagi-ken, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A torque generation device includes a rotor connected to a shaft and rotatable about a rotary axis of the shaft; an external member disposed outside the rotor and rotatable about the rotary axis relative to the rotor; a magnetically responsive material in a gap between the rotor and external member; a magnetic field generating unit generating a magnetic field passing the magnetical...