ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,257,647, issued on March 25, was assigned to NIPPON LIGHT METAL COMPANY LTD. (Tokyo).
"Joining method" was invented by Ryo Yoshida (Shizuoka, Japan) and Hiroshi Kaneki (Shizuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A joining method includes: an overlapping step of overlapping a front surface of a first metal member with a back surface of a second metal member; and a welding step of welding the first metal member with the second metal member by hybrid welding, with use of a hybrid welding machine including a leading laser welding unit and a trailing arc welding unit. In the welding step, laser welding, by irradiating a laser beam, and a...