ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,379,493, issued on Aug. 5, was assigned to SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS Co. Ltd. (Suwon-si, South Korea).

"Optical sensor device for determining distance to object and velocity of the object, and identifying the shape and structure of the object" was invented by Viacheslav Sergeevich Kholoburdin (Moscow), Vladislav Valerievich Lychagov (Moscow), Vladimir Mikhailovich Semenov (Moscow), Anastasiia Sergeevna Suvorina (Moscow), Kirill Gennadievich Beliaev (Moscow) and Dmitrii Alexandrovich Shelestov (Moscow).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A miniature optical sensing device for determining distance to an object and velocity of the object, and identifyin...