US Patent Issued to Bel Devices on July 14 for "Method and apparatus for determining the operational state of a contact device" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,678,101, issued on July 14, was assigned to Bel Devices Inc. (Danville, Calif.).

"Method and apparatus for determining the operational state of a contact device" was invented by Brent Carson Drouin (San Diego), Brent Benbow Nixon (La Quinta, Calif.), Elan Hekier (San Diego) and Raymond Robert Choye (Belmont, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention discloses a method and an analysis apparatus for determining an operational state of a contact device. The method comprising detecting a change in one of temperature and/or proximity data of a contact surface of the contact device with reference to a baseline value. Thereaft...