ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,325,128, issued on June 10, was assigned to Festo SE & Co. KG (Esslingen, Germany).

"Method for operating a computer-based inventory of hardware modules of a robotic system" was invented by Alfons Riek (Weilheim, Germany), Curt-Michael Stoll (Esslingen, Germany), Hans Klingel (Stuttgart, Germany), Marcel Aeschlimann (Ligerz, Switzerland), Samuel Malzach (Evilard, Switzerland), Christian Schmid (Feusisberg, Switzerland), Christoph Berger (Oberburg, Switzerland), Carole Chapelat (Biel, Switzerland), Judith Wimmer (Biel, Switzerland), Ivo Aschwanden (Zurich, Switzerland), Martin Helmer (Zurich, Switzerland), Markus Andreas Muller (Zurich, Switzerland) and Peter Barmettler (Bern, Switzerl...