ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,589,531, issued on March 31, was assigned to NIKKO-MATERIALS Co. LTD. (Kanagawa, Japan).

"Laminating apparatus, and vacuum laminating device and flat press laminating device used therefor" was invented by Yoshiaki Honma (Kanagawa, Japan), Akiyuki Nakayama (Kanagawa, Japan), Tomomi Suzuki (Kanagawa, Japan), Takeshi Yamaguchi (Kanagawa, Japan) and Taihei Matsumoto (Kanagawa, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a laminating apparatus capable of suppressing the generation of voids in a resulting laminate and manufacturing a laminate with improved flatness, including a vacuum laminating device and a first flat press laminating ...