ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,422,192, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to NGK INSULATORS Ltd. (Nagoya, Japan) and NGK Kilntech Corp. (Nagoya, Japan).
"Heat treatment furnace" was invented by Takanori Isono (Inazawa, Japan), Taiki Kinnan (Nagoya, Japan) and Michihiro Ito (Nagoya, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A heat treatment furnace disclosed herein may include: a heat treatment unit configured to heat-treat an object; a cooling unit configured to cool the object heat-treated by the heat treatment unit; and a conveyor configured to convey the object in the heat treatment unit and the cooling unit. The cooling unit may include a housing, wherein the housing i...