ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,294,832, issued on May 6, was assigned to DENSO Corp. (Kariya, China), TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan), MIRISE Technologies Corp. (Nisshin, Japan) and Nisshinbo Micro Devices Inc. (Tokyo).

"Microelectromechanical systems device" was invented by Yuki Ohara (Nisshin, Japan), Tomoya Joke (Nisshin, Japan), Tetsuya Enomoto (Nisshin, Japan), Hideo Yamada (Nisshin, Japan), Shuji Katakami (Fujimino, Japan), Takahide Usui (Fujimino, Japan), Hiroyuki Kuchiji (Fujimino, Japan) and Naoki Masumoto (Fujimino, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A microelectromechanical systems device includes a vibrator and a reinforcing film. The vibrator includ...