ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,510,190, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to ASAHI YUKIZAI Corp. (Miyazaki, Japan).
"Pinch valve" was invented by Yukinobu Sato (Nobeoka, Japan) and Kenji Kuroda (Nobeoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pinch valve 1 comprises a tube body 3 made of an elastic material having a flow path formed inside, a pressing part 4, a rod member 6 attached to a front end of the pressing part 4, and a coupling part 35 provided on the outer surface of the tube body 3 and coupling the rod member 6 to the tube body 3 in a transverse arrangement with respect to the tube body 3, wherein pressing or releasing the tube body 3 by the pressing part 4 th...