ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 20 -- United States Patent no. 12,529,148, issued on Jan. 20, was assigned to Mahle International GmbH (Germany).
"Sliding member" was invented by Juliano Avelar Araujo (Coimbra, Portugal) and Rafael Rabello (Murtede, Portugal).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A sliding member may include a metallic base, at least one intermediate bonding layer disposed on the metallic base, and a multilayer protective coating disposed on the intermediate bonding layer. The at least one intermediate bonding layer may be composed of at least one metal. The multilayer protective coating may include a plurality of CrAlN layers and a plurality of Cr(Al)N layers arranged in an alternating manner...