ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,308,009, issued on May 20, was assigned to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (Plano, Texas).
"Magnetic coupling for sound transmission" was invented by Taehwa Lee (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Hideo Iizuka (Ann Arbor, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems for magnetoacoustically transferring sound across an acoustic barrier include first and second acoustic resonators positioned on opposite sides of the barrier. Each of the first and second resonators includes an attached magnet. Via magnetic coupling between the magnets, an acoustic oscillation at the first resonator induces an oscillation of the same frequency...