ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,680,540, issued on July 14, was assigned to Keurig Green Mountain Inc. (Burlington, Mass.).
"Peristaltic pump" was invented by Jiann Chen (Weston, Mass.) and Mario Liuzza (Chelmsford, Mass.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A peristaltic pump can include radially movable lobes (4) to selectively contact a pump conduit (22) to drive fluid flow or permit free flow through the conduit. Lobes can be caused to move radially outwardly to engage a pump conduit in response to forward and reverse drive rotations of the lobes and/or a carrier (3) on which the lobes are mounted. Lobes can be contacted by a drive element (13) to move the lobes radially...