Ground Balance Theory

[Ferric Toes]

It was published here on the forum , and that's enough . By the way , I told with one smart old man who knows patent laws ( he made a several inventions in the past ) , and he explained me that only the fact of publication does matter , even in a newspaper . After this I had read something about this stuff in the Internet and found the same thing - if somebody published the invention in every kind of mass media , this invention cannot be patented . The only exclusion , as I understand , can be made only for the author himself - he can patent it within half of the year from the publication date ( as I remember correctly ) . And another tip - if somebody will somehow get the patent on the invention that was published before , he can own it , but cannot use it - if he will go to law with this patent , the defendant can present this publication , and that's all - the claim must be rejected .

I remember being told by a patent agent that you must not even tell your mate in the pub about the idea. That being so, if the idea is on the internet to a worldwide audience it makes sense that the idea is in a very public domain. It may mean bringing the attention of a patent examiner to what has been made public in this way, to defeat existing applications that are not novel.

Eric.

[Aziz]

I remember being told by a patent agent that you must not even tell your mate in the pub about the idea. That being so, if the idea is on the internet to a worldwide audience it makes sense that the idea is in a very public domain. It may mean bringing the attention of a patent examiner to what has been made public in this way, to defeat existing applications that are not novel.

Eric.

And I have stored all the published good ideas on my harddisk(s).
(Including deemon's)

Just for the case someone loses his idea.

Aziz

[Prospector_Al]

Publication

I remember being told by a patent agent that you must not even tell your mate in the pub about the idea. That being so, if the idea is on the internet to a worldwide audience it makes sense that the idea is in a very public domain. It may mean bringing the attention of a patent examiner to what has been made public in this way, to defeat existing applications that are not novel.

Eric.

Hi Eric,

They key sentence of your post is:

"It may mean bringing the attention of a patent examiner to what has been made public in this way, to defeat existing applications that are not novel."

As I said before, Patent Examiners don't scan Forum post--there's simply too much irrelevant stuff posted.

If you are aware of an application that tries to use old material, you have to advise the Examiner before the patent is granted. Attacking the patent after it is granted is very costly. Getting it invalidated is nearly impossible, unless you hire an attorney who specializes in patent litigation. and that will cost you more than you can afford,

A physical arrangement that reduces an invention to practice can be decribed in many ways. As is evidenced by the many patents that re-patent old material, clever attorneys can give the invention a title that changes the classification and it won't be easily found.

There's even a large number of technologies being patented, although the technology is actually beng used in existing equipment. Again, how is the Examiner to know, unless someone alerts him/her?

The patent system is a mess. But what's the alternative? Are you simply giving away the fruits of your hard labour by not protecting your invention? Heavy paint on the circuit boards is not the answer. All you need to do is to hold up a search coil to a detector and you'll immediately find out the coil pulse waveform and deduce the rest from that.

There used to be a way called : "Protective Publication", but it was dicsontinued by the USPTO, for some reason.

Now you just invent and take your chances...

I'm not practicing law here, but I have more experience with patents than most people and I'm expressing my opinions to protect novel inventors from disappointment.

Happy inventing,

Allan

[Davor]

Defensive publication is live and kicking. It works for Linux.

[Prospector_Al]

Defensive publication is live and kicking. It works for Linux.

Do you mean a software patent? There are some things that are so much in the public eye that even an Examner can't be unaware of them.. An operating platform is one of them

The advice given to Eric from an attorney about not devulging an invention even to a mate is good--mainly because the patent laws have changed. Now, it's not the first person to invent who gets the patent, it's the first one to file an application. You can actually get a patent based on somebody else's hard work. Patently unfair, in my opinion.


However, you still can't patent and idea--it's the implementation of the idea that's patentable. You'r e not likely to be able to convey that to a mate over a pint of Guinness Ale.

No need to keep a log any more, it's inadmissible. But there's more work for Examiners and litigators...just what they wanted.


Allan

[Carl-NC]

As I said before, Patent Examiners don't scan Forum post--there's simply too much irrelevant stuff posted.

If you are aware of an application that tries to use old material, you have to advise the Examiner before the patent is granted. Attacking the patent after it is granted is very costly. Getting it invalidated is nearly impossible, unless you hire an attorney who specializes in patent litigation. and that will cost you more than you can afford,

Allan, you are entirely correct about all this. An irony in all this is that there is a "duty of candor" by the applicant to reveal prior art known to them. Failure to do so is "inequitable conduct" which can be a very effective in completely invalidating a patent. Now, it may be difficult to prove that the applicant didn't know about something posted on Geotech, but I've often wondered what would happen if you emailed the relevant info directly to the applicant during the examination period. If they then failed to give that to the examiner, it could be grounds for inequitable conduct. I'll ask my patent attorney next time I talk to him.

Sorry for going OT...

[Carl-NC]

However, you still can't patent an idea--it's the implementation of the idea that's patentable.

Something that a few folks on another forum don't understand.

[Prospector_Al]

Allan, you are entirely correct about all this. An irony in all this is that there is a "duty of candor" by the applicant to reveal prior art known to them. Failure to do so is "inequitable conduct" which can be a very effective in completely invalidating a patent. Now, it may be difficult to prove that the applicant didn't know about something posted on Geotech, but I've often wondered what would happen if you emailed the relevant info directly to the applicant during the examination period. If they then failed to give that to the examiner, it could be grounds for inequitable conduct. I'll ask my patent attorney next time I talk to him.

Sorry for going OT...

Hi Carl,

If it can be proven that the applicant knowingly withheld information that would have prevented the granting of a patent, there's an even worse accusation that can be levelled: "Fraud on the Patent Office."

I have read the entire MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure--yours for $400.00 from the Government Printing Office). There are rules that are completely ignored, these days. A patent is supposed to "teach" how to use the invention "without undue experimentation". Many patents don't even work with experimentation--significant details are omitted with the intent of getting patent protection without honoring the deal: You get monopoly for a limited time, in exchange for teaching how to make the gizmo. That's fraud again, but to prove it, you'd have to attempt to "reduce the patent to practice" and show that all the necessary information is not there. Tooo much work...


All things considered, we have to play the game, since there is no alternative.

All the best,

Allan

[Aziz]

Hi all,

did patents protect someones/market leaders IP? No, copy cats are good at copying and they are ******* on patents.
The more detailed the patent, the better for the copy cats.

The real big invention is to cash cow the inventors. The big winners are the lawyers and patent issuing institutions only (the real inventors). See what the patent ****** are making today. Particularly in the software business.

I for one wouldn't patent an idea today. Its totally waste of money and the low lifes gets fat.
But sharing the idea (for free) will make the world (hopefully) better.

And what can be said about someone, who is permanently & systematically patenting everything (prior art, low inventive, trivial ideas, obvious ideas, re-newed idea, ..).
What's the effort and reason for monopolizing the market?
IT'S GREED!
Aziz

[Ferric Toes]

And now for a bit of respite, let's get back to Ground Balance.

I have just done some viscosity measurements on a piece of ferrite rod of a grade that is used for radio antennas. This has been suggested in the past as a possible substitute for magnetically viscous ground. Compared to the Red Hill soil, which I tend to use as a medium viscosity standard, the ferrite gives only 27% signal. i.e. a spot reading of 40 instead of 140. The problem though is that the slope is different from any natural soil or rock that I have measured; -1.27 compared to a range of -0.99 to -1.05 for the latter. Red Hill soil is -1.03.

Eric.

[Prospector_Al]

And now for a bit of respite, let's get back to Ground Balance.

I have just done some viscosity measurements on a piece of ferrite rod of a grade that is used for radio antennas. This has been suggested in the past as a possible substitute for magnetically viscous ground. Compared to the Red Hill soil, which I tend to use as a medium viscosity standard, the ferrite gives only 27% signal. i.e. a spot reading of 40 instead of 140. The problem though is that the slope is different from any natural soil or rock that I have measured; -1.27 compared to a range of -0.99 to -1.05 for the latter. Red Hill soil is -1.03.

Eric.

I imagine that the big difference between synthetic ferrites and those found in nature is that the former are homogeneous in compostion, whereas the latter are not.

I use ferrite "pot cores" for inductors and transformers. The various grades differ in terms of permeability and saturation values.

It appears that the loss factor and frequency of operation are the criteria to be considered in making a choice. Ferroxcube is one of the makers of pot cores and I use some for testing. The cores used for high frequency application produce a signal that is almost perfectly 90 deg ahead of the coil current vector. Does that imply low vicosity?

Allan

[Ferric Toes]

Refinement continues in viscosity plotting and accuracy of the negative exponent. The plot below is a superimposition of 10gms of Red Hill soil and 10gms of Oz ironstone pieces. Readings were taken at 10uS intervals between 20uS and 100uS. I did not start at 10uS this time as there seems to be a non linearity that creeps in for times earlier than 20uS delay, and this will affect the slope fit at later times, although by only a tiny amount. The non linearity is not in the equipment, so it must be the sample. It is particularly true for Oz ironstone which has anomalous responses as reported earlier.

The fit data is superimposed, so not legible, but the figures are RH Soil -0.999 +/- 0.0054 and Oz ironstone -1.061 +/- 0.0031.

RH Soil is just a whisker shy of the theoretical value for viscous decay.

The linear graph also emphasizes the large amplitude difference between a strong USA soil and strong Oz goldfield material. Both measured on the same instrument sensitivity.

Eric.

[Tepco]

And now for a bit of respite, let's get back to Ground Balance.

I have just done some viscosity measurements on a piece of ferrite rod of a grade that is used for radio antennas. This has been suggested in the past as a possible substitute for magnetically viscous ground. Compared to the Red Hill soil, which I tend to use as a medium viscosity standard, the ferrite gives only 27% signal. i.e. a spot reading of 40 instead of 140. The problem though is that the slope is different from any natural soil or rock that I have measured; -1.27 compared to a range of -0.99 to -1.05 for the latter. Red Hill soil is -1.03.

Eric.

Slope well may deviate even more than -1.27, not due to ferrite, but due to measurement method. Some constructive criticism. Namely, measurement method, as described before, using variable pulse, then stepping integration time and delay will tend to “flatten out” and average any measurement to look close to slope 1. I'm well aware of necessity to do this, due to noise considerations and small samples, method is perfectly good if slope is initially assumed to be around 1, but otherwise may tend to cause some uncertainty and mask eventual deviations, if there is some in initial process.

[Ferric Toes]

Slope well may deviate even more than -1.27, not due to ferrite, but due to measurement method. Some constructive criticism. Namely, measurement method, as described before, using variable pulse, then stepping integration time and delay will tend to “flatten out” and average any measurement to look close to slope 1. I'm well aware of necessity to do this, due to noise considerations and small samples, method is perfectly good if slope is initially assumed to be around 1, but otherwise may tend to cause some uncertainty and mask eventual deviations, if there is some in initial process.

Hi Tepco,
I have examined the method I use for obtaining the data and cannot find any significant errors due to instrumentation. Of course, the method is open to scrutiny and I welcome that, but full details of the technique will be kept under wraps for obvious reasons. Tests I have done to check for instrument error are to change the sensor coil inductance i.e. 200uH down to 50uH with no effect other than reducing the overall amplitude. Checking linearity of the system throughout, and measuring known metallic TC's and checking for linear decay on a log/lin scale. The instrument has no temperature drift from 5degC to 30degC, although the sample has susceptibility and viscosity drift. Auto correction is applied at each delay measurement so that a true zero baseline is obtained. The same sample has been measured several times to check that the readings are consistent. Sample volumes have been measured for 5gm, 10gm amd 20gm and slope is the same. Each measurement is subject to a +/- 1 least digit on the display. Here are the raw data sets for the two samples in the graph in my previous post. Plot them how you will to check my results.

Eric.

[Aziz]

Hi Eric,

thanks for the interesting results.

I think, that the term "viscosity" needs a clear clarification right now.
How would you define or declare the term "viscosity"?

Cheers,
Aziz

PS: there is an interesting non-linearity < 20µs, which should be followed as well.