ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,668,720, issued on June 30, was assigned to NITTO DENKO Corp. (Ibaraki, Japan).
"Adhesive tape" was invented by Kota Nakao (Ibaraki, Japan) and Kazuki Soejima (Ibaraki, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A pressure-sensitive adhesive tape of the present invention includes thermally expandable microspheres, wherein the thermally expandable microspheres are each formed of a shell and a volatile substance contained in the shell, and wherein the shell is formed of a resin having a glass transition temperature (Tg) of 120deg C. or more. In one embodiment, the resin for forming the shell contains a constituent unit having a carboxyl group."...