US Patent Issued to CANON on July 14 for "Optical device and image pickup apparatus" (Japanese Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,681,263, issued on July 14, was assigned to CANON K.K. (Tokyo).

"Optical device and image pickup apparatus" was invented by Takeru Yuri (Tochigi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An optical device can include four lens units and four drive units. The four drive units are configured to move respective lens units of the four lens units. The four lens units each move in a direction along an optical axis. The optical device also includes a stop member that has a variable aperture diameter and is driven by a fifth drive unit. Further, each of the first to fifth drive units is an actuator. One of the drive units is arranged closer to an im...