ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,278,033, issued on April 15, was assigned to TDK Corp. (Tokyo).

"Magnetoresistance effect element" was invented by Shinto Ichikawa (Tokyo), Katsuyuki Nakada (Tokyo) and Kazuumi Inubushi (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A magnetoresistance effect element includes a first ferromagnetic layer, a second ferromagnetic layer, and a nonmagnetic layer. The nonmagnetic layer is between the first ferromagnetic layer and the second ferromagnetic layer. At least one of the first ferromagnetic layer and the second ferromagnetic layer is a Heusler alloy layer. The nonmagnetic layer includes a first region and a second region in a plane. Both of th...