ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,998, issued on June 17, was assigned to MONALISA GROUP Co. LTD (Foshan, China).

"Hard wear-resistant polished glazed ceramic tile and preparation method thereof" was invented by Yijun Liu (Foshan, China), Laifu Deng (Foshan, China), Yuandong Yang (Foshan, China), Xianchao Wang (Foshan, China) and Kelin Zhang (Foshan, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A preparation method includes the following steps: Step (1): pressing and then drying body powder to form a green brick; Step (2): applying a ground coat on the surface of the green brick; Step (3): inkjet-printing a pattern on the surface of the green brick having the ground coat, an...