ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,455,397, issued on Oct. 28, was assigned to The First Institute of Oceanography, MNR (Qingdao, China), Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) (Qingdao, China) and National Marine Data Information Center (Tianjin, China).

"Method for evaluating thicknesses of cobalt-rich crusts on seamounts" was invented by Shijuan Yan (Qingdao, China), Chengfei Hou (Qingdao, China), Gang Yang (Qingdao, China), Xiande Tian (Tianjin, China), Xiangwen Ren (Qingdao, China), Jun Ye (Qingdao, China), Zhiwei Zhu (Qingdao, China), Qinglei Song (Qingdao, China), Zhuanling Song (Qingdao, China), Mu Huang (Qingdao, China), Yue Hao (Qingdao, China), Chunhua Han (Tianjin, China) and ...