ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,263,659, issued on April 1, was assigned to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide Inc. (Neenah, Wis.).
"Composite elastic laminate" was invented by Jose Augusto Vidal De Siqueira (Roswell, Ga.) and Michael R. Vaughan (Atlanta).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of making a composite elastic laminate is provided where an elastic layer is stretched in the machine-direction and while in a stretched state is fed into a grooved-roll assembly, together with outer facing layers, for imparting simultaneous cross-direction stretching forces to the superposed layers. The bi-directional stretching forces causes the elastic layer to tear and/or rupture allow...