US Patent Issued to NIBCO on March 17 for "Piping articles incorporating an alloy of copper, zinc, and silicon" (Indiana, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,578,038, issued on March 17, was assigned to NIBCO INC. (Elkhart, Ind.).

"Piping articles incorporating an alloy of copper, zinc, and silicon" was invented by Benjamin L. Lawrence (Elkhart, Ind.), Rudy L. Smith (Mission, Texas), Wesley D. Coy (McAllen, Texas), Kenneth Edgar McCoy (South Bend, Ind.) and Todd Morehead (McAllen, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A piping component that includes (i) a piping body with an open end; and (ii) an alloy comprising (by weight percentage) 12% to 16.5% zinc, 0.265% to 1.6% silicon and sufficient copper so that the sum of the weight percentages of the zinc, silicon, and copper in the alloy is at ...