ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,624,238, issued on May 12, was assigned to YAMAMOTO CHEMICALS INC. (Yao, Japan).
"Printed material" was invented by Takamichi Amako (Yao, Japan) and Hiroyuki Sasaki (Yao, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A printed material (100) has a base substance (1), an absorption part (22) (a near infrared ray absorbing layer (3)) that is provided on the base substance (1) to contain a near infrared ray absorbing material, and a code shape (20) that is formed in a predetermined shape from the absorption part (22) or by covering a part of the absorption part (22) and that outputs code information (CI), upon irradiation with light of near infrared ...