ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,601,245, issued on April 14, was assigned to Commando Pressure Control Inc. (Houston).

"Methods and systems associated with an automated zipper manifold" was invented by Joseph Mark Boyd (Houston).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An automated zipper manifold system for remotely monitoring and controlling valves between a mixing chamber and one or more wells. Each line includes a pair of valves, each with an actuator, position indicator, and pressure transducer. A computing device communicates with the valve modules to receive position and pressure data, determine valve states, and issue commands to open, close, or inject grease through ded...