US Patent Issued to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA, TOYOTA JIDOSHA on May 5 for "Adaptive programmable pump" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,618,403, issued on May 5, was assigned to TOYOTA MOTOR ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING NORTH AMERICA INC. (Plano, Texas) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Adaptive programmable pump" was invented by Paul Gilmore (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Umesh Gandhi (Farmington Hills, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An adaptive programmable pump includes a pump housing, a diaphragm comprising a variable stiffness element attached to the pump housing, a piezoelectric element operatively connected to the diaphragm, and a control element coupled to the variable stiffness element, where the control element is configured to control a stiffness of the var...