ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,281,725, issued on April 22, was assigned to Technische Universitat Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany).

"Method for constructing a pipeline portion of a pipe system, and pipeline portion of a pipe system in a heating network" was invented by Ingo Sass (Bensheim, Germany), Bastian Welsch (Oberstenfeld, Germany), Markus Schedel (Ober-Ramstadt, Germany) and Julian Formhals (Berlin).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In a method for setting up a pipeline section of a pipe system in a heat network, which is provided for transferring a heat transfer fluid between a heat provider and a heat consumer, the pipeline section is subdivided into segments in a ...