ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,315,483, issued on May 27, was assigned to GuangZhou LAVA MUSIC LLC (Guangzhou, China).

"Pickups for enhanced playability of musical instrument, stringed instrument with pickups, and method for controlling pickups" was invented by Zi-Tian Lu (Guangzhou, China), Cheuk Ho Tse (Guangzhou, China), Shuai Yin (Guangzhou, China), Kai-Sheng Su (Guangzhou, China) and Fang-Fang Chen (Guangzhou, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pickup, a stringed instrument, and a pickup control method are disclosed. The pickup comprises: pickup components (110), multi-touch screens (130) and processing components (140). The multi-touch screens (130) and the ...