US Patent Issued to Taka Solar on June 9 for "Method for manufacturing photovoltaic tubes" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,651,996, issued on June 9, was assigned to Taka Solar Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.).

"Method for manufacturing photovoltaic tubes" was invented by Christopher Dwight Barnes (Mountain View, Calif.), Joon Hee Lee (Corona, Calif.) and Michael S. Lee (Corona, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for manufacturing a photovoltaic tube includes: dispensing encapsulant material onto a segment of a circular cross-section of the transparent tube; and drawing a vacuum at perforations on a mandrel to transiently retain a solar module on the mandrel. The method also includes navigating the mandrel into the transparent tube to locate the sola...