US Patent Issued to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on July 7 for "Smart vehicle door opening and related methods" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 7 -- United States Patent no. 12,674,351, issued on July 7, was assigned to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA INC. (Plano, Texas) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Aichi-Ken, Japan).

"Smart vehicle door opening and related methods" was invented by Te-Ping Kang (Milford, Mich.), Bensingh Beno (Farmington Hills, Mich.) and John Rafferty (Dexter, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The touchless opening or closing of a vehicle door using a camera to assist in detection of a user's predefined actions is disclosed. A user approaches a vehicle and, once in proximity to the vehicle, is detected. The system authenticates the user and identifies a predefined action o...