ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,312,036, issued on May 27, was assigned to Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Airbag device" was invented by Yutaka Aikyo (Wako, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An airbag device that is mounted on a vehicle and provided with an airbag that deploys around a rider includes: a separation unit that separates the airbag from the vehicle; a detection unit that detects an elapsed time since deployment of the airbag; and a separation control unit that causes the separation unit to separate the airbag in a case where a predetermined condition including a first condition that the elapsed time detected by the detection unit exceeds a time threshol...