US Patent Issued to Alps Alpine on June 16 for "Multi-directional input device having a permanent magnet" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,656,809, issued on June 16, was assigned to Alps Alpine Co. Ltd. (Japan).

"Multi-directional input device having a permanent magnet" was invented by Nobuyuki Ninomiya (Miyagi-ken, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An input device has: a fixed base; a case positioned on the fixed base; a movable body supported on the fixed base by the case so as to be movable in a direction crossing the up-down direction; a magnetic field generation means, for generating a magnetic field downward, attached to the movable body; and a magnetic field direction detection means for detecting the direction of a magnetic field component along a virtual plane ...