ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,312,186, issued on May 27, was assigned to PANASONIC HOLDINGS Corp. (Osaka, Japan).
"Workpiece conveyance device" was invented by Ryuta Abe (Osaka, Japan), Tatsuya Masada (Hyogo, Japan) and Masahide Maruyama (Nara, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A workpiece conveyance device includes: a plurality of holding heads that include a holding part and a vacuum pump; and a conveyance track. The vacuum pump includes a pump unit and a shaft part that is rotated to activate the pump unit. The shaft part includes a first magnet. The conveyance track includes a second magnet extending in a conveyance direction of the holding head and being arra...