US Patent Issued to Hyundai Motor, Kia on May 12 for "Electronic shift operation apparatus" (South Korean Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,624,755, issued on May 12, was assigned to Hyundai Motor Co. (Seoul, South Korea) and Kia Corp. (Seoul, South Korea).

"Electronic shift operation apparatus" was invented by Deok Ki Kim (Hwaseong-Si, South Korea).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An electronic shift operation apparatus switches a mode of a shift operation to an automatic shift and a manual shift based on a driver's intention and differently restricts shift direction strokes of a shift rod in accordance with an automatic shift mode and a manual shift mode, thereby improving the convenience of a shift operation and improving recognition performance during the shift operation." ...