US Patent Issued to Altria Client Services on April 8 for "Gas-based material compression and portioning" (Virginia Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,269,627, issued on April 8, was assigned to Altria Client Services LLC (Richmond, Va.).

"Gas-based material compression and portioning" was invented by Dwight David Williams (Powhatan, Va.), James David Evans (Chesterfield, Va.), Patrick Sean McElhinney (Chesterfield, Va.) and Jarrod Wayne Chalkley (Mechanicsville, Va.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An apparatus configured to provide portioned instances of a compressible material includes a channel assembly, a gas source, a cutting assembly, and a discharge assembly. The channel assembly holds a bulk instance of the material extending through upper and lower channels of a continuous chan...