ML patent Application

[technos]

Looking through this discussion of the first post

"Metal Detector Sensor Head" Patent No. US20130057286 A1

I see many comments about there is not much "unique" technology with this patent application. I would have to agree. Especially to using ferrite materials on connections and in search heads.

However there is not much discussion about prior art. Being a new law I am not too familiar with the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-S...ca_Invents_Act - But it allows third parties to submit third party documents on an application.

I would like to suggest that we do so. Is anybody else interested?

Things that I consider to be prior art (so far);

1) The covering of soldered connection by a ferrite bead

2) The protection of a connection by RF interference using a ferrite bead.

This is only after a very cursory examination of material related to ferrite bead use.

Is anybody familiar with the specific procedure of sending material to the patent office?

[Prospector_Al]

Allan, I see there are a few claims cancelled in 20080150537.
Specifically claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

I see claims 5, 6 and 10 remain in the patent. I am interested in trying to understand how patents are worded and how they work, and am wondering why, after you submitted this patent with 18 claims, 15 of them were cancelled before the patent was granted?

All the best,
Paul.

Hi Paul,

I submitted a number of claims, in case some were rejected. If there are objections by the patent examiner, you have to argue with him and present evidence why the claim should be allowed.

In this case, once the essential claims were allowed, I cancelled the rest to save time.

Writing claims is an involved subject which can not be explained in a brief post. I learned how to write claims by taking a course, given by a patent attorney. In addition to that, I bought the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure from the Government Printing office. ($400.00) That allowed me to see the applications from the examiner's point of view. There are many rules you have to follow, and unless you know them, you can't expect to have any claims allowed.

If you are seriously interested, you have to do what I did. That presupposes that you have quite a few patent applications you want to file--otherwise it's not worth the trouble.


All the best,

Allan

[Paul99]

Did it work? Yes, it worked. I use the old-fashioned method of filing patent applications:

All the best,
Allan

Allan, I see there are a few claims cancelled in 20080150537.
Specifically claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

I see claims 5, 6 and 10 remain in the patent. I am interested in trying to understand how patents are worded and how they work, and am wondering why, after you submitted this patent with 18 claims, 15 of them were cancelled before the patent was granted?

All the best,
Paul.

[Prospector_Al]

Did it work? Yes, it worked. I use the old-fashioned method of filing patent applications: I design the circuit and THEN, I file the application. Other players in the field file "paper patents' on circuits they've never tried in practice. The main object there is to freeze out competition, in case the idea actually works. You can afford to do that if your corporation has a patent attorney on a retainer and he has to be kept busy. The drawback is that you have to pay a maintenance fee to keep the patent alive.

Even though a patent has lapsed, it still serves a purpose: It's now "prior art", and nobody else can patent the idea.

As an individual, I play by different rules. If I find a better way of doing what a patent covers, I let the old one lapse and I file a new one. That applies to this lapsed patent: I have improved the technology considerably and this will become apparent in a new application, in due time. How much time?


Tinkerer asked a rhetorical question: Do you know how long it takes for a patent to mature into a product that is marketed? It's usually years after the patent is granted. In my case, it's several years, because metal detector design is not my main occupation. In the grand scheme of things, there are more important things in life. I'm working an a project that will have a great impact on the health of millions of people--metal detector design is simple in comparison, and I use that to relax...

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=11&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=Westersten.IN.&OS=IN/Westersten&RS=IN/Westersten

All the best,

Allan

I just realized that the significance of the patent I cited above is only obvious to those involved in medical research. So, I'll explain it in simple terms. At last count, there were about 5000 diseases that are genetically predisposed. The method described in the patent makes it possible to replace the defective genes, so that the diseases are permanently cured.

We demonstrated that the technique works in animals, but it needs to be refined to be applicable to humans. That's my daytime job, and you can see why my metal detector work is on the back burner.

Besides, gold fever does not need to be cured--all we want is a detector that obviates the need to dig up 100 pieces of trash to find one nugget. (This is the trash/nugget ratio cited on a forum. I don't have the time nor the patience to dig that many holes in vain, and that's the reason I'm working on a detector...)


All the best,

Allan

[Prospector_Al]

A quick search of the US patent office brings up nothing, so, looks like this patent has lapsed. I wonder if it didn't work.

Did it work? Yes, it worked. I use the old-fashioned method of filing patent applications: I design the circuit and THEN, I file the application. Other players in the field file "paper patents' on circuits they've never tried in practice. The main object there is to freeze out competition, in case the idea actually works. You can afford to do that if your corporation has a patent attorney on a retainer and he has to be kept busy. The drawback is that you have to pay a maintenance fee to keep the patent alive.

Even though a patent has lapsed, it still serves a purpose: It's now "prior art", and nobody else can patent the idea.

As an individual, I play by different rules. If I find a better way of doing what a patent covers, I let the old one lapse and I file a new one. That applies to this lapsed patent: I have improved the technology considerably and this will become apparent in a new application, in due time. How much time?


Tinkerer asked a rhetorical question: Do you know how long it takes for a patent to mature into a product that is marketed? It's usually years after the patent is granted. In my case, it's several years, because metal detector design is not my main occupation. In the grand scheme of things, there are more important things in life. I'm working an a project that will have a great impact on the health of millions of people--metal detector design is simple in comparison, and I use that to relax...

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=11&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=Westersten.IN.&OS=IN/Westersten&RS=IN/Westersten

All the best,

Allan

[mikebg]

What's your problem and what are you on about?

I think that Aziz likes the KISS principle used by Allan in his patents.
They are "Free science, knowledge and inventions to the mankind" (as patents of Minelab :-).

[Paul99]

What's happened Ufox (and mikebg)? $hite $torming against Al now?
Bad boys!!!
Aziz

What's your problem and what are you on about?

[Aziz]

A quick search of the US patent office brings up nothing, so, looks like this patent has lapsed. I wonder if it didn't work.

What's happened Ufox (and mikebg)? $hite $torming against Al now?
Bad boys!!!
Aziz

[Paul99]

And there is another patent Prospector_Al has:-

http://www.geotech1.com/forums/showt...ht=20080150537

A quick search of the US patent office brings up nothing, so, looks like this patent has lapsed. I wonder if it didn't work.

[Paul99]

I love Prospector_Al and his patents.

7,701,337 - Hybrid-technology metal detector
7,701,204 - Metal detector with reliable identification of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in soils with varying mineral content
7,656,153 - Metal detector with improved receiver coil

I believe in Prospector_Al and his goodwill!
Long live Prospector_Al to make a lot new patents!

Love your comment Aziz on the KISS principle!

And there is another patent Prospector_Al has:-

http://www.geotech1.com/forums/showthread.php?14478-New-PI-Discriminating-patent&highlight=20080150537

[mikebg]

Bad, really bad boy! Take your pills, praise and love ML as I did so.
Speak with me now:
"I love ML and their patents!
I believe in ML and their goodwill!
Long live ML!"


Love your comment Moodz!
Aziz

I love Prospector_Al and his patents.

7,701,337 - Hybrid-technology metal detector
7,701,204 - Metal detector with reliable identification of ferrous and non-ferrous metals in soils with varying mineral content
7,656,153 - Metal detector with improved receiver coil

I believe in Prospector_Al and his goodwill!
Long live Prospector_Al to make a lot new patents!

Love your comment Aziz on the KISS principle!

[bklein]

Boy aren't you in for a surprise.
This is best demonstrated with a ground balancing PI detector. Place the coil flat on the ground away from metal, then place a coin on the ground at a distance from the edge of the coil where it would be detected if moving. The coin will then give a response if you pass a soft ferrite rod over the coin even though the coil and coin are both stationary.

As said before, a coil containing excess metal will have you digging ghost signals in mineralised ground that don't exist if using a properly made coil.

Hey, a new pinpointer design.

But for the metal in the coil to have an effect on the detection, there has to be a moving magnetic field. So it brings more sensitivity to ferrous materials in the ground - but only if there is coil movement. So does that mean if we want to find meteorites we put a metal piece on our coil? Or is it really that different than if there is no metal on the coil - because the coil is moving in both cases?

[Aziz]

...a good ultrasonic welded wire splice can have stronger bonding than solder and less magnetic signature.
For example ...

http://www.techsonicultrasonic.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=7

and I do believe the patent mentions ferrite over solder ...soooooo ... If you don't use solder for the bond then you are not infringing.

Bad, really bad boy! Take your pills, praise and love ML as I did so.
Speak with me now:
"I love ML and their patents!
I believe in ML and their goodwill!
Long live ML!"


Love your comment Moodz!
Aziz

[Davor]

RG58 regularly comes as tinned copper braid. A couple of metres even of thinner cable would not make much difference in total resistance.

[Ferric Toes]

Joints between a multiple independent strand cable could be done, but that would be labour intensive and sounds like a third world job to do affordably Do some detectors with the frontend, or all electronics, closer to the search head (Ebinger?) route the actual coil wires without joints into the detector electronics, as twisted pair? The shield, if necessary, would be another factor. All coax cables I know of have a woven and/or foil outer conductor, which makes for eddy currents. A section of coax is not as bad as a piece of copper tube in tests but still noticeable compared to the center conductor alone (which would be easy to fix). Litz techniques for coax cables, or just twisted pairs and high CM rejection?

The Minelab mono coax and the twin coax for DD coils is a specially made Litz construction. It eliminates one big problem that standard coax has, and that is detection of the braid at the point of entry into the coil shell. Tinned copper braid is better than just copper strands, but flexing of the cable at this point tightens and slackens the strands so that the contact resistance changes. An eddy current ring is formed when the ends of the strands are soldered together to connect to the ground side of the coil winding, but the varying contact resistance between strands changes the TC and amplitude of the ring - hence noise. Litz shielded coax avoids this but you still have the problem of the soldered joint, which in a heavy cable such as ML's can be large enough to give a signal at short delays. A Litz constructed RG58 type cable should be excellent (except for low resistance ML coils) but would have to be specially made.

Some coaxial audio interconnects boast Litz type construction and low capacitance, so there might be something there that would do.

Eric.