ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,486,204, issued on Dec. 2, was assigned to NORTHEN UNIVERSITY OF CHINA (Taiyuan, China) and SHANXI ZHONGBEI NEW MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY Co. LTD. (Taiyuan, China).

"Device and method for industrialized continuous and simplified preparation of urea-formaldehyde slow-release nitrogen fertilizer or urea-formaldehyde-based slow- and controlled-release multi-nutrient fertilizer" was invented by Guizhe Zhao (Taiyuan, China), Mingshan Gong (Taiyuan, China), Yaqing Liu (Taiyuan, China) and Yang Xiang (Taiyuan, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "This disclosure relates to slow- and controlled-release fertilizers, and more particularly to a device and...