US Patent Issued to Tuftco on July 14 for "Narrow gauge hollow needle improvement" (Tennessee Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,680,208, issued on July 14, was assigned to Tuftco Corp. (Chattanooga, Tenn.).

"Narrow gauge hollow needle improvement" was invented by Jason Daniel Detty (Chattanooga, Tenn.), Keith England (Chattanooga, Tenn.) and Michael Morgante (Chattanooga, Tenn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for tufting lower loop heights than prior art machines could tuft with a hollow needle tufting machine is disclosed. Polishing and/or rounding edges of needles, which may be smaller in diameter than prior art needles were implemented with a straight edge backing bar, and dimensionally stable woven backing fabric to provide consistently lower loops th...