ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,240,956, issued on March 4, was assigned to JSP Corp. (Tokyo).
"Expanded bead and method for producing the same" was invented by Takumi Sakamura (Tochigi, Japan) and Hajime Ohta (Tochigi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An expanded bead having a tubular shape with a through hole and a method for producing the same are provided. The expanded bead includes a foamed core layer and a covering layer. A polyolefin-based resin included in the covering layer has a melting point lower than a melting point of a polypropylene-based resin included in the foamed core layer. An average hole diameter d of the through hole of the expanded bead is l...