ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,366,021, issued on July 22, was assigned to Card-Monroe Corp. (Chattanooga, Tenn.).
"Tufting machine and method of tufting" was invented by Marshall A. Neely (Soddy Daisy, Tenn.), Ricky E. Mathews (Sale Creek, Tenn.) and William M. Christman Jr. (Chattanooga, Tenn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tufting machine for selectively forming tufts of yarns, including different color or type yarns, for forming patterned tufted articles such as carpets. A series of needles are reciprocated into and out of a backing material being fed through the tufting machine and are engaged by a series of gauge parts so as to pick-up loops of yarns from the ...