ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,285,960, issued on April 29, was assigned to BROTHER KOGYO K.K. (Nagoya, Japan).

"Printing device configured to discharge printing tape with printed surface thereof visible to user" was invented by Masahide Asano (Nagoya, Japan), Takahiro Ogawa (Nagoya, Japan) and Shinji Ukai (Kiyosu, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A printing device includes a housing, a printing head, and an input unit. The housing includes a cassette accommodating portion to which a tape cassette accommodating a roll of a printing tape is detachably attachable. The cassette accommodating portion has an insertion opening through which the tape cassette can be inser...