ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,446,755, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to Haier US Appliance Solutions Inc. (Wilmington, Del.).

"System and method for determining presence of water softener" was invented by Austin Horn (Louisville, Ky.), Noushin Mir (Lousiville, Ky.), Je Kwon Yoon (Hwangseong-si, South Korea), Seong Hoon Ryu (Suwon-si, South Korea), Wonmyung Seo (Seongnam-si, South Korea), Khalid Jamal Mashal (Louisville, Ky.) and Oluwatosin Fagbuyi (Louisville, Ky.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An appliance, system, and method for operating an appliance and determining presence of water softener at water provided to an appliance is provided. The system is configure...