US Patent Issued to FUJIFILM on Dec. 16 for "Drive device and imaging apparatus" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,498,540, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to FUJIFILM Corp. (Tokyo).

"Drive device and imaging apparatus" was invented by Azuchi Endo (Saitama, Japan), Masahiko Miyata (Saitama, Japan) and Masahiro Hideshima (Saitama, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A drive device includes a piezoelectric element, a drive shaft that receives vibration of the piezoelectric element and vibrates along an optical axis direction of a first imaging optical system, an engagement member that is frictionally engaged with the drive shaft and is connected to the first imaging optical system, and a lens controller that controls vibration of the piezoelectric ele...