ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,662,496, issued on June 23, was assigned to ZHEJIANG WYNCA CHEMICAL INDUSTRY GROUP Co. LTD (Hangzhou, China) and ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY (Hangzhou, China).

"Method for preparing 4-(hydroxymethylphosphinyl)-2-oxobutanoic acid" was invented by Shuguang Zhou (Hangzhou, China), Lirong Yang (Hangzhou, China), Long Qin (Hangzhou, China), Haisheng Zhou (Hangzhou, China), Shenluan Yu (Hangzhou, China), Jianping Wu (Hangzhou, China), Linlin Wang (Hangzhou, China), Bo Zhan (Hangzhou, China) and Ping Wang (Hangzhou, China).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention provides a method for preparing 4-(hydroxymethylphosphinyl)-2-oxobutanoic acid,...