US Patent Issued to Honda Motor on Sept. 29 for "Vehicle" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,746,996, issued on Sept. 29, was assigned to Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Vehicle" was invented by Tomokazu Sakamoto (Saitama, Japan), Kazumasa Ozaki (Saitama, Japan) and Masaki Goto (Saitama, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle includes a drive unit, a direction input device, a mode switching operator, and a control device. The drive unit is provided at a vehicle body frame and is capable of translating in all directions on a floor surface and turning. The direction input device receives a direction input. The mode switching operator receives a mode switching input. The control device is configured to: switch a travel mode...