ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,351,240, issued on July 8, was assigned to Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Vehicle body side structure" was invented by Kenji Inagaki (Tokyo), Takafumi Takayama (Tokyo) and Seiichi Kato (Tokyo).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a vehicle body side structure in which a center pillar (pillar) which extends upward from a side sill having a hollow cross section forms a closed cross section with a pillar inner thereof and a stiffener joined to an outer side in a vehicle-width direction of the pillar inner, and the stiffener has a protruding shape which protrudes outward in the vehicle-width direction, wherein the stif...