ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,209,678, issued on Jan. 28, was assigned to VAT Holding AG (Haag, Switzerland).
"Valve plate" was invented by Mathias Schon (Salez, Switzerland), Bernhard Litscher (Buchs, Switzerland), Mario Moser (Meiningen, Austria), Alen Franic (Feldkirch, Austria) and Gregor Beck (Schaan, Liechtenstein).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A valve plate has a plate portion with an elastomeric seal on a front face and an elongated connecting portion spaced apart from a rear face by a slot for fastening the valve plate to a valve rod. The extension of the connecting portion in the width direction is defined by opposing first and second side edges of the conn...