ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,578,749, issued on March 17, was assigned to ALPS ALPINE Co. LTD. (Tokyo).
"Multidirectional input device" was invented by Kunio Hosono (Fukushima, Japan) and Tetsuo Muranaka (Miyagi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A multidirectional input device is capable of performing a tilting operation and a pressing operation. The device includes a strain inducing body that includes a cylindrical portion and one or more deformable portions provided on an outer side of the cylindrical portion, a plunger provided inside of the cylindrical portion of the strain inducing body, a strain detecting element provided at the deformable portion of the ...