ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 25 -- United States Patent no. 12,338,704, issued on June 24, was assigned to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).
"System for deploying microchips" was invented by Raed Alahmdi (Thuwal, Saudi Arabia), Abrar Alshaikh (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Bodong Li (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A microchip deployment system for a well includes a drilling fluid pump, a drilling fluid pipe extending from the drilling fluid pump into the well, and a microchip deployment mechanism provided on the drilling fluid pipe. The microchip deployment mechanism comprises a housing and a spherical valve. The housing has an input opening and an output opening....