US Patent Issued to Nikon Metrology, Nikon on June 2 for "Laser radar" (American, Japanese, British Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,644,988, issued on June 2, was assigned to Nikon Metrology NV (Leuven, Belgium) and Nikon Corp. (Tokyo).

"Laser radar" was invented by Anthony Slotwinski (Nellysford, Va.), Ghassan Chamsine (Haymarket, Va.), Tom Hedges (Haymarket, Va.), Paul Lightowler (Birmingham, Great Britain), Daniel Gene Smith (Tucson, Ariz.), Yasuhiro Hidaka (Fujisawa, Japan) and Masanori Arai (Kamakura, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Laser radar include two part objective lenses that are used for imaging a target and directing probe beams to the target. Portions of tracer beams that degrade target images are attenuated with dichroic filters that block central...