ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,291,031, issued on May 6, was assigned to Ricoh Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Liquid discharge head and liquid discharge apparatus" was invented by Shusei Murai (Tokyo), Tatsumi Suzuki (Tokyo), Keiko Maruyama (Miyagi, Japan), Satoshi Kudoh (Miyagi, Japan) and Hiroyasu Umehara (Miyagi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A liquid discharge head includes a nozzle forming member having a nozzle configured to discharge liquid; an opening and closing member configured to open and close the nozzle; a piezoelectric body configured to expand contract in an axial direction in response to a drive voltage so as to actuate the opening and closing member such ...