US Patent Issued to HNI Technologies on July 29 for "Fireplace with controllable and image-bearing rear wall" (Minnesota Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,372,244, issued on July 29, was assigned to HNI Technologies Inc. (Muscatine, Iowa).

"Fireplace with controllable and image-bearing rear wall" was invented by Richard D. Berg (Lakeville, Minn.) and Gary L. Butler (Silver Lake, Minn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A fireplace and method of manufacturing a fireplace. Embodiments of the fireplace comprise a combustion chamber, a front opening allowing viewing within the combustion chamber, and a back wall opposite the front opening. The back wall can be controllably switched between an opaque state and a transparent state. A combustion region between the front opening and the back wall is a...