ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,304,667, issued on May 20, was assigned to NORTHROP GRUMMAN SYSTEMS Corp. (Falls Church, Va.).
"Tubular support element" was invented by Chesley Lane (Hawthorne, Calif.), Steven J. Floyd (Monterey Park, Calif.), Talbot P. Thrasher (Coatesville, Pa.), Timothy R. Stone (Torrance, Calif.) and Vernon M. Benson (Morgan, Utah).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tube element including a first set of spaced apart tape strips helically wound in one direction, and a second set of spaced apart tape strips helically wound in an opposite direction as the first set of tape strips so that the tape strips in the first set periodically cross the tape strips...