US Patent Issued to Volvo Car on June 17 for "Panel assembly for a vehicle" (Swedish Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,578, issued on June 17, was assigned to Volvo Car Corp. (Gothenburg, Sweden).

"Panel assembly for a vehicle" was invented by Sebastian Rutelin (Fagerfjall, Sweden), Johan Rosenberg (Lerum, Sweden) and William Hubinette (Gothenburg, Sweden).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A panel assembly for a vehicle. The panel assembly includes an occupant-facing surface, and a detachable portion of the occupant-facing surface. The detachable portion is adapted to contact an occupant when the detachable portion is detached from the occupant-facing surface during deployment of an airbag from behind the occupant-facing surface."

The patent was filed o...