ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,387,180, issued on Aug. 12, was assigned to SMOOTHER ROADS AHEAD LLC (La Mesa, Calif.).

"Application to notify vehicle owner of undesirable vehicle condition" was invented by Thomas Loftin (Alpine, Calif.) and Charles Marchesini (La Mesa, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A user of a software application presented herein can notify other registered users of the software application of undesirable conditions of a vehicle associated with a user account. A first user observes a vehicle in an undesirable state (as specified in each of the respective figures). Using the software application, the first user enters a license plate number (o...