ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,227,139, issued on Feb. 18, was assigned to Ford Global Technologies LLC (Dearborn, Mich.).
"Airbag assembly for liftgate" was invented by Zhibing Deng (Northville, Mich.), Srinivas Reddy Malapati (Novi, Mich.), Joseph E. Abramczyk (Farmington Hills, Mich.) and Deepak Patel (Canton, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle includes a vehicle roof and a liftgate pivotable relative to the vehicle roof between an open position and a closed position. The vehicle includes an airbag supported by the liftgate and moveable with the liftgate between the open position and the closed position. A tether is fixed to the airbag and the liftgate....