ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,259,801, issued on March 25, was assigned to KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. (Eindhoven, Netherlands).

"System and method for automated or semi-automated identification of malfunction area(s) for maintenance cases" was invented by Milosh Stolikj (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Qi Gao (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Bart Albertus Gerardus Van Der Velden (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Jurgen Jan Rusch (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Eugene Alekseyevich Ivanov (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Mauro Barbieri (Eindhoven, Netherlands), Johannes Henricus Maria Korst (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Marc Andre Peters (Veldhoven, Netherlands).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method (100...