US Patent Issued to MURATA MANUFACTURING on April 7 for "User interface device" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,594,493, issued on April 7, was assigned to MURATA MANUFACTURING Co. LTD. (Kyoto, Japan).

"User interface device" was invented by Kohei Sugahara (Nagaokakyo, Japan), Hiroshi Watanabe (Nagaokakyo, Japan), Koichi Inoue (Nagaokakyo, Japan) and Takatoshi Kato (Nagaokakyo, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A user interface device includes a grip including dimensions in a radial direction and a circumferential direction and extending in a longitudinal direction, and at least one optical sensor provided at the grip including a proximity sensor that includes a light emitter and a light receiver, and a force sensor to detect a contact force by...