ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,218,497, issued on Feb. 4, was assigned to National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC (Albuquerque, N.M.) and UNM Rainforest Innovations (Albuquerque, N.M.).

"Optically switched circuit breaker with cascaded transistor topology" was invented by Gregory Pickrell (Rio Rancho, N.M.), Jason Christopher Neely (Albuquerque, N.M.), Lee Gill (Albuquerque, N.M.), Jacob Mueller (Albuquerque, N.M.), Luciano Andres Garcia Rodriguez (Albuquerque, N.M.), Jack David Flicker (Albuquerque, N.M.), Emily Ann Schrock (Albuquerque, N.M.), Robert Kaplar (Albuquerque, N.M.), Harold P. Hjalmarson (Albuquerque, N.M.) and Jane Lehr (Placitas, N.M.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S...