ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,360,270, issued on July 15, was assigned to SHANDONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (Qingdao, China).

"Sediment classification method and system based on bottom echo information of deep-sea multibeam water column" was invented by Xiaodong Cui (Shandong, China), Feihu Zhang (Shandong, China), Fanlin Yang (Shandong, China), Xianhai Bu (Shandong, China), Tianyu Yun (Shandong, China), Feng Wang (Shandong, China) and Wenjun Li (Shandong, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a sediment classification method and system based on bottom echo information of a deep-sea multibeam water column, falling within the technical field of...