ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,040, issued on May 13, was assigned to Shiseido Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).
"Cosmetic oil thickener and oil-soluble copolymer" was invented by Makoto Uyama (Tokyo), Kazuyuki Miyazawa (Tokyo), Mineo Abe (Kyoto, Japan) and Takuya Furuta (Kyoto, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention provides a novel oil thickener that can impart a thickening effect for oils used in cosmetics, and a novel oil-soluble copolymer that can be used as the thickener. The cosmetic oil thickener of the invention is an oil-soluble copolymer having a monomer unit composed of a hydrophilic monomer, a monomer unit composed of an easily-crystallizing hydrophobic m...