ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,248,140, issued on March 11, was assigned to PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT Co. LTD. (Osaka, Japan).
"Optical device" was invented by Kenji Narumi (Osaka, Japan) and Yasuhisa Inada (Osaka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An optical device includes an optical deflector that emits, through a light exit surface parallel to a first direction and a second direction intersecting the first direction and in a direction intersecting the light exit surface, an optical beam having a shape extending in the second direction and that is configured to cause a direction of emission of the optical beam to change along the first directio...