ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,696,931, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to Imperial Tobacco Ltd. (Bristol, Great Britain).
"Smoking substitute system" was invented by Adam Russell (Liverpool, Great Britain) and Jason Roebuck (Liverpool, Great Britain).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A smoking substitute system and device comprising a heater apparatus for a heat not burn smoking substitute device, the heater apparatus comprising a solid blade-type heating element adapted for insertion into a consumable for the heat not burn smoking device, wherein the heating element has a multi-sectional cross section comprising at least two sections, each of the sections having a surface...