ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 13 -- United States Patent no. 12,520,877, issued on Jan. 13, was assigned to Philip Morris Products S.A. (Neuchatel, Switzerland).
"Smoking device with authentication means" was invented by Eva Ferrari (Bologna, Italy), Andrew Mclauchlan (Neuchatel, Switzerland) and Maxime Chateau (Neuchatel, Switzerland).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An aerosol-generating system is provided, including: an aerosol-generating device having a locked state in which the aerosol-generating device is prohibited from generating aerosol and an unlocked state in which the aerosol-generating device is permitted to generate aerosol; and a receiving device to at least partially receive the aerosol-...