ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,325,378, issued on June 10, was assigned to Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. (Kiyosu, Japan).
"Airbag tether separation" was invented by Roland Dominic Furtado (Novi, Mich.), Srinivas Krishnan (Troy, Mich.) and Roy Peter Deutschmann (South Lyon, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An airbag tether separation system includes an airbag tether separator having an explosive and a housing including a wall with at least one space formed in the wall. The tether separator is structured so that, when the explosive is activated, the explosive produces shockwaves causing separation of a portion of a tether extending between the explosive and the wall. At lea...