US Patent Issued to Alps Alpine on July 21 for "Controller" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,685,927, issued on July 21, was assigned to Alps Alpine Co. Ltd. (Japan).

"Controller" was invented by Tetsu Numata (Miyagi, Japan), Tetsuo Muranaka (Miyagi, Japan), Masaki Ota (Miyagi, Japan), Kunio Hosono (Fukushima, Japan) and Yasuji Hagiwara (Miyagi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A controller has: a case; a manipulation unit, in a plate-like shape, disposed in the case so as to be exposed from the case; and a haptic sensor that detects a rotation manipulation for the manipulation unit. The haptic sensor has a distortion generating body fixed to the center of the manipulation unit and also has a distortion sensor disposed on th...