ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,314,498, issued on May 27, was assigned to Alps Alpine Co. Ltd. (Japan).
"Input apparatus" was invented by Hajime Suzuki (Miyagi, Japan), Kunio Sato (Miyagi, Japan), Shinichi Sagawai (Miyagi, Japan) and I Ka (Miyagi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An input apparatus includes an operating unit on which an input operation is performed by an operator, a detecting unit configured to detect the input operation performed on the operating unit, an actuator configured to impart vibration to the operating unit, and a control unit configured to supply a drive signal to the actuator according to a result of detection performed by the detectin...