ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,344,302, issued on July 1, was assigned to TOYODA GOSEI Co. LTD. (Aichi-pref., Japan) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Steering wheel" was invented by Bunpei Morita (Aichi-ken, Japan), Masato Mito (Aichi-ken, Japan), Ryuichi Okashita (Miyoshi, Japan) and Motoya Funatsu (Toyota, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A steering wheel includes a boss portion disposed at a rotation steering center side, a grip portion disposed around the boss portion, and an operation lever portion disposed between the boss portion and the grip portion. The operation lever portion is pivotally supported by a rotation shaft portion provided close to th...