US Patent Issued to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Toyota Jidosha on Dec. 30 for "Vehicles and systems for determining tailgate position using accelerometers" (Michigan Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,508,994, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (Plano, Texas) and Toyota Jidosha K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Vehicles and systems for determining tailgate position using accelerometers" was invented by Scott P. Nehls (Ypsilanti, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle includes a vehicle body having a cabin area and a cargo area including a truck bed assembly. A tailgate assembly is pivotally connected to the truck bed assembly. The tailgate assembly is moveable between a raised configuration and a lowered configuration. A control unit includes logic that, when executed by a non-t...