ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,371,861, issued on July 29, was assigned to SUMITOMO CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY Co. LTD. (Tokyo).
"Asphalt finisher" was invented by Kazuaki Hagiwara (Chiba, Japan) and Tetsuya Watanabe (Chiba, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An asphalt finisher includes a tractor, a hopper disposed in front of the tractor and configured to receive a pavement material, a conveyor configured to convey the pavement material in the hopper to a rear side of the tractor, a screw configured to spread the pavement material conveyed by the conveyor at the rear side of the tractor, a screed configured to compact the pavement material spread by the screw at a rea...