US Patent Issued to A. O. SMITH on June 23 for "Flexible connectors for water heater" (Tennessee Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,663,182, issued on June 23, was assigned to A. O. SMITH Corp. (Milwaukee).

"Flexible connectors for water heater" was invented by Mark Murphy (Nashville, Tenn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A water heater includes a tank defining an interior space adapted to contain water and a shroud over the water heater and defining a component space inside the shroud. A first pipe nipple is coupled to a spud of the water heater, the first pipe nipple and spud defining a non-collinear axis that is non-collinear with a pipe axis of a pipe to be fluidly connected to the tank. A flexible connector is connected at one end to the first pipe nipple along t...