ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 18 -- 3M Innovative Properties, St. Paul, Minnesota, has been assigned a patent (No. 11,118,614, initially filed Dec. 17, 2020) developed by Georg P. Victor, Wiggensbach, Germany, for a "process for pre-assembling a connecting element to a first component part, and process for frictionally-coupling a first and a second component part with a connecting element."

The full-text of the patent can be found at https://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Se . . .