US Patent Issued to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on July 22 for "Determination of vehicle clearance and optimized orientation of objects placed on roof" (Michigan, Wisconsin Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,365,348, issued on July 22, was assigned to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA INC. (Plano, Texas) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Aichi-ken, Japan).

"Determination of vehicle clearance and optimized orientation of objects placed on roof" was invented by Benjamin Piya Austin (Saline, Mich.), John K. Lenneman (Okemos, Mich.), Joshua E. Domeyer (Madison, Wis.), Philip J. Babian (Canton, Mich.) and George M. Evans (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method in communication with a sensor that can attach to objects placed on the roof of a vehicle acquires dimensional data to determine the position/orient...