ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,594,578, issued on April 7, was assigned to TOTO Ltd. (Fukuoka, Japan).
"Structural member" was invented by Atsushi Kinjo (Fukuoka, Japan), Nobutomo Otsuka (Fukuoka, Japan) and Fumito Toda (Fukuoka, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A structural member 10 includes a base material 100 and a protective film 200 covering a surface 110 of the base material 100. When, in a cross-section of the protective film 200 cut perpendicularly to the surface 110, a proportion of pores per unit area is defined as porosity, the porosity in a first portion 201 that is a portion of the cross-section is lower than the porosity in a second portion 202 that...