ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,490,861, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to Marmon Foodservice Technologies Inc. (Osseo, Minn.).
"Rapid IR toaster" was invented by Jose Enrique Cardona (Pasadena, Calif.), Constantine Bovalis (Chicago), Joseph Ricker (Buffalo Grove, Ill.) and William James Fienup (Chicago).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A toaster includes a rack within a toasting chamber. A lid is movable with the rack to selectively occlude an opening to the toasting chamber. A heating element within the toasting chamber is operable to direct IR energy to the bread product on the rack. An image capture device operates to acquire image data of the bread product on the rack...