ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,594,211, issued on April 7, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Walking assist device" was invented by Tadashi Odashima (Toyota, Japan) and Hideaki Hattori (Nagoya, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A walking assist device includes a pair of link members rotatably connected to each other at an output shaft situated at a location corresponding to a knee of a user, one link member being fixed to a thigh side of the user, and another link member being fixed to a lower leg side of the user, a rotary damper that generates a resistance force that is conveyed to the output shaft and that acts against rotation of the link me...