ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,402,291, issued on Aug. 26, was assigned to Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan).

"Component supply device" was invented by Yoshinori Isobata (Fukuoka, Japan), Atuyuki Horie (Fukuoka, Japan) and Minoru Kitani (Fukuoka, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A component supply device includes an introduction sprocket that rotates with an outer peripheral pin engaged with a feed hole of a carrier tape on a conveyance path, thereby conveying the carrier tape, and a wheel that has a plurality of recesses on an outer periphery, and receives the outer peripheral pin of the rotating introduction sprocket by the reces...