ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,359,731, issued on July 15, was assigned to DENSO Corp. (Kariya, Japan).
"Valve device" was invented by Takuya Hamada (Kariya, Japan), Ryo Sano (Kariya, Japan) and Atsushi Tanaka (Kariya, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A valve device includes a stationary disk, a shaft and a rotor. The valve device includes: a housing that has a boss portion, through which the shaft is inserted; and a seal member that is shaped in a ring form and is configured to seal a gap between the shaft and the boss portion. The shaft includes a holder that has a contact portion which is in contact with the seal member. The holder is made of a polymer material...