ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,493,656, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to Deere & Co. (Moline, Ill.).

"Geo-based vector data and raster data joining and/or aggregation using user defined function(s)" was invented by Nanzhu Wang (Kirkland, Wash.), Zhiqiang Yuan (San Jose, Calif.) and Sai Cheemalapati (Bellevue, Wash.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Techniques are disclosed herein that enable the generation and processing of user defined functions for customized aggregation and/or joining of instances of agricultural data. Various implementations include agricultural image data which includes one or more high elevation images that capture an agricultural plot. Additional ...