US Patent Issued to Philip Morris USA on May 12 for "Banded papers, smoking articles and methods" (Virginia Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,622,455, issued on May 12, was assigned to Philip Morris USA Inc. (Richmond, Va.).

"Banded papers, smoking articles and methods" was invented by Ping Li (Glen Allen, Va.), Firooz Rasouli (Midlothian, Va.), Rajesh K. Garg (Richmond, Va.), Randall E. Baren (Glen Allen, Va.), Marc W. Rose (Mechanicsville, Va.), Peter J. Lipowicz (Midlothian, Va.), Tony A. Phan (Richmond, Va.), Timothy S. Sherwood (Midlothian, Va.), Szu-Sung Yang (Midlothian, Va.), Donald E. Miser (Chesterfield, Va.) and Milton E. Parrish (Midlothian, Va.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Wrapper for cigarette manufacture includes transversely extending band regions applied by a...