ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,260,976, issued on March 25, was assigned to SEIKO EPSON Corp. (Japan).
"Magnetic bead and magnetic bead dispersion" was invented by Yasunari Ikeda (Shiojiri, Japan), Michio Nakamori (Matsumoto, Japan) and Hirofumi Hokari (Chino, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A magnetic bead contains: a magnetic metal powder; and a coating layer with which a particle surface of the magnetic metal powder is coated. When the magnetic bead is left to stand in a state of a dispersion obtained by dispersing the magnetic bead in water, a time until an initial absorbance of the dispersion attenuates to 80% of an absorbance when the standing is started i...