US Patent Issued to NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CORPORATION HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY, FURUKAWA ELECTRIC on Jan. 28 for "Functional structure" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,208,375, issued on Jan. 28, was assigned to NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CORPORATION HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY (Sapporo, Japan) and FURUKAWA ELECTRIC Co. LTD. (Tokyo).

"Functional structure" was invented by Mai Nishii (Tokyo), Yuichiro Banba (Tokyo), Kaori Sekine (Tokyo), Yukako Nakai (Tokyo), Masayuki Fukushima (Tokyo), Sadahiro Kato (Tokyo), Takao Masuda (Sapporo, Japan), Yuta Nakasaka (Sapporo, Japan) and Takuya Yoshikawa (Sapporo, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A functional structure which can resist a decrease in the function of the functional material and thus have a long life, can be free from the need for complicated replacement operation...