ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,606,004, issued on April 21, was assigned to Mazda Motor Corp. (Aki-gun, Japan).

"Contactor failure determination apparatus for vehicle" was invented by Shinya Fujioka (Aki-gun, Japan), Haruki Yamane (Aki-gun, Japan), Junya Kono (Aki-gun, Japan), Yuki Ida (Aki-gun, Japan) and Yuta Otsuka (Aki-gun, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "To provide a contactor failure determination apparatus capable of appropriately determining failure of a contactor provided in a vehicle, a voltage sensor capable of detecting rising or dropping of a voltage of a second circuit including an external charger is provided. When a vehicle start request is made,...