ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,328,241, issued on June 10, was assigned to PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CORPORATION OF AMERICA (Torrance, Calif.).

"Information management method" was invented by Toshihisa Nakano (Osaka, Japan), Motoji Ohmori (Osaka, Japan) and Tomoyuki Hirota (Hyogo, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A server apparatus receives a device ID indicating one electrical home appliance among one or more electrical home appliances and a gateway ID indicating that the one electrical home appliance belongs to a same owner, a same group, or a same home as the one or more electrical home appliances, determines whether or not the one electrical home applian...