ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,241,261, issued on March 4, was assigned to Champion Link International Corp. (The Valley, Anguilla).

"Panel suitable for assembling a floor covering" was invented by Thomas Luc Martine Baert (Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium), Tom Van Poyer (Jiaxing, China) and Sven Boon (Jiaxing, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Panel suitable for assembling a floor covering by gluing a plurality of said panels onto a substrate, wherein the panel has a substantially planar top side, and a substantially planar bottom side, at least four substantially linear side edges comprising at least one pair of opposite side edges, the panel having a layered structu...