ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,387,896, issued on Aug. 12, was assigned to PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Co. LTD. (Osaka, Japan).

"Contact device and electromagnetic relay equipped with same" was invented by Shohei Mizuma (Mie, Japan), Masahiro Ito (Mie, Japan), Takuma Nakagawa (Mie, Japan) and Tomokazu Harano (Mie, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided is a contact device including a first contact, a second contact that is movable relative to the first contact and is brought into contact with or separated from the first contact, a first body part including the first contact, a second body part including the second contact, and a yoke arranged adj...