ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,601,187, issued on April 14, was assigned to UNILIN BV (Wielsbeke, Belgium).
"Floor panel" was invented by Laurent Meersseman (Mont de l' Enclus, Belgium), Martin Segaert (Ypres, Belgium) and Mark Cappelle (Staden, Belgium).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A floor panel has a rectangular and oblong shape, and includes a substrate and a top layer provided on the substrate and forming a decorative side of the floor panel. The top layer is composed of a print provided on a carrier sheet and a transparent thermoplastic layer situated above the print. The substrate has a thickness from 2 to 10 millimeters and forms at least half of the thicknes...