ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,697,872, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to VARITRONIX (HEYUAN) DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY LTD. (Heyuan City, China).

"Smart surface, center console for vehicle, and vehicle" was invented by Jinwu Chen (Heyuan City, China), Huaiping Zhang (Heyuan City, China), Haiqiang Zhong (Heyuan City, China), Hongzhang Li (Heyuan City, China), Zhongfu Cao (Heyuan City, China), Dianyi Ruan (Heyuan City, China), Junjie Fang (Heyuan City, China) and Zhijian Zhu (Heyuan City, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Provided are a smart surface, a center console of a vehicle, and a vehicle. The smart surface includes a display device (10), a decorative cover plate (20...