ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,287,114, issued on April 29, was assigned to Iris Ohyama Inc. (Sendai, Japan).

"Air circulator" was invented by Hideki Yamamoto (Kakuda, Japan), Kazuhito Fukumasu (Kakuda, Japan) and Hiroshi Ishikawa (Kakuda, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An air circulator includes a blower unit having an airflow opening on a front side of the blower unit and a grill in the airflow opening, and a support unit that supports the blower unit. The grill has a plurality of airflow guide blades arranged in a spiral, and inner end portions of the airflow guide blades proximal to a center of the spiral of the plurality of airflow guide blades protrude from...