ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,297,687, issued on May 13, was assigned to STABILUS GmbH (Koblenz, Germany).

"Fluid damper including a switching piston, method for manufacturing the fluid damper, drive arrangement including the fluid damper" was invented by Stephan Enders (Koblenz, Germany), Andreas Seus-Kapellen (Boppard-Udenhausen, Germany), Christoph Lischetzki (Andernach, Germany) and Michael Schneider (Ochtendung, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A fluid damper is provided including a cylinder filled with a damping fluid, a piston base body shiftably guided in the cylinder along a stroke axis, and a valve disk spaced apart from a shell wall of the cylinder. ...