ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,274,412, issued on April 15, was assigned to iRobot Corp. (Bedford, Mass.).
"Evacuation dock with fluid management" was invented by Vincent Andrew Wolff (Norfolk, Mass.), Brian W. Doughty (Framingham, Mass.), Leo Torrente (Somerville, Mass.), Travis Gschrey (Billerica, Mass.), Jack Zhang (Guangzhou, China), Levi Fox (Salem, Mass.), Rogelio Manfred Neumann (Somerville, Mass.), Celerick Stephens (Billerica, Mass.) and James J. Mahoney Jr. (Hyde Park, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A docking station for a mobile cleaning robot can include a canister and a base configured to receive the mobile cleaning robot thereon, where the base can ...