ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,668,307, issued on June 30, was assigned to TOYODA IRON WORKS Co. LTD. (Aichi, Japan).
"Vehicular side structure" was invented by Yousuke Imamura (Aichi, Japan) and Takeshi Taniguchi (Aichi, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle side structure includes: a rocker extending in a front-and-rear direction of a vehicle; and an impact absorbing member adjacent to the rocker. The rocker includes a tubular inner space formed by joining a rocker inner panel and a rocker outer panel, which are made of a steel sheet having a hat-shaped cross section, in such a manner as to face each other. The rocker includes an undersurface forming a step...