ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,318,023, issued on June 3, was assigned to LIBERTY HARDWARE MFG. CORP. (Winston-Salem, N.C.).

"Retail product package and display" was invented by Yasmeen Gabrielle Coan (Winston-Salem, N.C.) and William Matthew Hicks (Winston-Salem, N.C.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A packaging assembly is provided with a product package. A plurality of retail products is supported upon the product package in an array for transportation. A plurality of dividers is connected to the product package and extends between sequential retail products for separation of the sequential retail products during shipping, wherein the dividers are removable."

The pat...