ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,608,992, issued on April 21, was assigned to Hubei University of Arts and Science (Xiangyang, China).

"Bill binding and encoding device and a classification filing system" was invented by Ke Liu (Xiangyang, China), Jing Cao (Xiangyang, China), Zhicheng Zhong (Xiangyang, China), Xingchen Liu (Xiangyang, China) and Wangnan Li (Xiangyang, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to the technical field of bill management, in particular to a bill binding and encoding device and a classification filing system, wherein the bill binding and encoding device comprises: a bottom plate, a movable encoding mechanism and ink ribbon ...