ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,322,232, issued on June 3, was assigned to FCL Components Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Knob holding structure and smart lock" was invented by Yuji Yada (Tokyo) and Tetsuhiro Ishikawa (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A knob holding structure according to one aspect of the present disclosure has a holder, a pair of pinching members configured to hold a knob and arranged opposed to each other in the holder, and an elastic member configured to support the pair of pinching members so that each pinching member can be displaced relative to an inner surface of the holder, and to bias the pinching members in a direction so as to approach each other."
The ...