ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,291,636, issued on May 6, was assigned to Erthos Inc. (Mississauga, Canada).

"Biodegradable polymeric material, biodegradable products and methods of manufacture and use therefor" was invented by Chang Dong (Mississauga, Canada), Kritika Tyagi (Mississauga, Canada), Nima Zarrinbakhsh (Mississauga, Canada), Hossein Abdoli (Mississauga, Canada) and Jiahui Wen (Shenzhen, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention encompasses biodegradable compositions (e.g., biodegradable plastics) and methods of preparation and use thereof, and disposable products made from the claimed compositions. Raw materials for preparing the biodegradable pla...