US Patent Issued to AISIN on July 14 for "Vehicle step device and vehicle including vehicle step device" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,679,275, issued on July 14, was assigned to AISIN Corp. (Kariya, Japan).

"Vehicle step device and vehicle including vehicle step device" was invented by Kimihiro Sekine (Kariya, Japan), Masashi Miwa (Kariya, Japan) and Ryota Tachi (Kariya, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle step device includes: a step portion that is attached to a side of a vehicle and is deployed from a retracted position to a getting-on/off position when an occupant gets on and off the vehicle; and a drive unit configured to drive the step portion between the retracted position and the getting-on/off position. The drive unit deploys the step portion to a t...