ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,923, issued on April 15, was assigned to TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING Co. LTD. (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

"Exhaust system with U-shaped pipes" was invented by Yu-Fu Lin (Hsinchu, Taiwan), Shih-Chang Shih (Tainan, Taiwan) and Chia-Chen Chen (Hsinchu, Taiwan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An exhaust system for discharging from semiconductor manufacturing equipment a hazardous gas includes: a main exhaust pipe above the semiconductor manufacturing equipment and having a top surface on a first side and a bottom surface on a second side, a first branch pipe connected to a source of a gas mixture containing the hazardous gas on the second sid...