ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,688,305, issued on July 21, was assigned to VOLKSWAGEN AG (Germany).

"Risk analysis of a distributed test object" was invented by Marcel Lotze (Braunschweig, Germany), Jorn Eichler (Berlin) and Alexander Tschache (Wolfsburg, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method, a computer program with instructions, and a system for the risk analysis of a distributed test object. The disclosed embodiment also relates to devices for use in such a system. According to the invention, a risk analysis for a part of the test object located in a first context is carried out. In addition, a risk analysis for a part of the test object located in a seco...