Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

BBC radio talks on intellectual property

The BBC is broadcasting talks on intellectual property daily next week, from the 25 February. They will be on Radio 4, and the five-part series will be called Mine all mine.

They will be 15 minutes long and will be broadcast at 15.45. Each will be on a theme: My Idea, My Name, My Music, My Pictures, My Words. "My Name" is about trade marks. Chris Ledgard is the presenter, and it will include his talking with staff from the UK Intellectual Property Office.

The name of the series intrigues me -- I can only think of its being the catchphrase of Stingy, one of the puppet characters in TV's Lazytown. Or is it Gollum ? A slightly odd tone, perhaps, to set for what is one of Britain's biggest industries.

The web site for the series is likely to feature "listen again", where for a limited period the talks will be available as (free) audio over the Web.

Blu-Ray technology wins the high definition war

I've just seen a BBC story stating that, as predicted, Toshiba has given up in the battle over high definition DVDs. It means that Sony's Blu-Ray technology will become the industry standard over Toshiba's HD format.

Sony of course lost the battle over video formats back in the late 1970s and the 1980s. VHS® defeated Betamax which was technically superior but could not record longer programmes such as films, and was generally outmanouevred in the publicity war.

Although there has been (mainly Korean) work on machines that can take either format, most machines that can take high definition DVDs can only cope with one format. High definition has become very popular as its means far more clarity than you get on a normal television screen. If you want to see what it's like, try playing a DVD film on a PC and see the clarity.

High definition is very demanding in memory, and standard DVDs would only be able to show about 10 minutes of such films.

In February 2002 Sony, Matsushita and Philips announced their new DVD concept, Blu-ray. I believe that the relevant invention is this patent, which was applied for by all three companies. Here is its main drawing.

Oddly, it carries a “priority date” of the initial filing for May 2002, which is later. Four Japanese and two Dutchmen are listed as the inventors. It uses a 0.1mm disk substrate layer that allows up to 23Gbytes of storage on one side of a DVD. That requires new tooling and equipment, raising production costs. It is backwards compatible with DVD or CD. It uses violet-blue lasers, which have a shorter wavelength (450 nm) than normal lasers, so that substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red 650 nm laser.

Because Blu-ray places the data recording layer close to the surface of the disc, early discs were susceptible to contamination and scratches, and had to be encased in plastic caddies for protection. This would have been likely to hurt sales, and the discs now use a layer of protective material on the surface through which the data is read.

Like many others, I have a digital, “HD-ready” television. The number of HD televisions in the UK is huge and growing, but fewer than 10% of owners can actually watch HD programmes on them. Many of them subscribe to channels such as Sky. Freeview is not the answer, as the technology is not appropriate.

The first titles were only released on Blu-ray in June 2006. The fact that Columbia Pictures and MGM were owned by Sony was a huge, and perhaps crucial, boost. Gradually more and more companies switched their allegiance to the format. What was, perhaps, a fatal blow in the struggle for market share was struck in June 2007, when Blockbuster, the largest chain of video game and DVD rental shops in the world, announced that its next batch of HD DVDs would only be in the Blu-ray format. If films are mostly available in one format, customers will naturally buy the machine for that format.

An example of a patent specification that offers to cater for either format is Warner Home Video's WO 06/071809, published in July 2006.

Australian inventions

Australia has been responsible for some interesting inventions over the years. Here are some notable ones which I am aware of.

Most people would assume that the combine harvester was an American invention. It fact it goes back to Hugh McKay, a young Victoria farmer, in 1885. He seems to have only had patents in the Australian colonies.

In 1914 George Julius of Sydney applied for a Totalizator, the so-called “Tote” for working out bets at racecourses. I wonder what his father, a bishop, thought of it.

In 1939 Franklin Barnes of Scoresby, Victoria applied for a Protective Means for Ships Against Mines, and Torpedo Attack. This is the degaussing method which makes ships non-magnetic. Just in time for World War II.

Then in 1964 Thomas Angove, a South Australia winemaker, invented the wine box, which was published as AU 280826, not on the Web. Keeping air out as it deflates makes the wine last longer.

In 1991 Craig Johnston, a former Liverpool FC footballer born in South Africa of Australian parents, applied for a patent for a Sports Shoe. This was marketed as the famous Predator® boot. The point is that like a tennis racquet it has a “sweet spot” to enable better control when striking the ball. Here is its main drawing.

Finally, in 1997 Graeme Attey of South Freemantle, Western Australia applied for a Skateboard which started the sport of being a Dirtsurfer®. Like many extreme sports it combines elements so that you surf on a hill.

There’s also the flight recorder, or “black box”. Dr David Warren carried out work into this idea for an aeronautical research laboratory in Melbourne and made a prototype in 1957, but it was not patented. Australia was the first country to insist on its being used in civil airliners.

No doubt there are many more. The Notable Australian World Firsts and the White Hat Guide to Australian Inventions, Discoveries & Innovations sites look interesting for those wanting to know more.

IP Australia has the official site for granting patents which, good as it is, has databases which do not cover material older than about a decade old.

The woes of technology

I have accidentally deleted every comment that’s been submitted to this blog. I was carrying out some tidying up and deleted the comments within the site that I use to write the blog, not realising that this also deleted them on the blog itself.

I had assumed that the act of “publishing” the comments put them permanently on the blog. I suppose it does make some kind of sense, as otherwise you wouldn’t be able to amend what was on the blog. No message warning me of the consequences appeared.

To say that I am sorry goes without saying. I am also very cross.

Technology, and software in particular, has many problems when the creators do not think through how a product or service might be used.

A good example is video / CD/ DVD recorders, which are notoriously difficult to use. All such machines should have a display that shows precisely what you have asked for, and asks you to confirm or amend it. My current machine is so badly designed that I have no idea if it has agreed to graciously go to a certain channel at the requested time – it often records a different channel for no obvious reason.

Then there is word processing software. I’m sure I’m not the only one to sometimes hit a key and something weird happens to the toolbars or something else on the screen. Not only do I not know what key has been pressed, I don’t know how to reverse what’s happened. It ought to be law that such software has the following three functions prominently on the toolbar:

Restore default toolbar & format

Personalise toolbar & format

Restore personalised toolbar & format

The most notorious example is the fact that in many PCs you still have to click on "Start" to shut the machine down. My father -- a university graduate -- spent two hours trying to figure out how to come out of his PC the only time he bought one.

For anyone thirsting for more examples of poor thinking, try the Bad Human Factors Designs site, which, it has been pointed out, is itself poorly designed as a web site. The occasional victory for common sense does occur. Dell colour codes the connections on their computers so that you know that a green cable goes into a green plug.

All companies have to do, often, is to ask some novices to try something out and observe their reactions. Then adapt the product. All too often experts assume that because they know something, the whole world knows it as well. Not so...

The Mosquito® teenager-repeller

There has been a lot in the news the last few days about the Mosquito® device which emits an irritating noise which only the young can hear, to deter them from hanging about shops.

This is the invention of Howard Stapleton, from Merthyr Tydfil. He is the managing director of Compound Security Systems. He says that the idea originated in an experience he had at the age of 12. He was visiting a London factory with his father, who was the chairman of the British arm of Ever Ready Batteries. The boy could not bear the noise from the ultrasonic welding equipment, which used high-frequency sound to melt and fuse plastics. He had to walk out, but none of the adults had heard a thing.

By the end of your twenties few can detect such high frequencies. The Children's Commissioner says it is wrong to single out the young, as reported in for example The Daily Telegraph.

The patent was granted in January 2007. I should have mentioned in my last blog that an advantage of going first to the Patents Status Enquiry database for a British patent number is that, besides identifying the status of a patent application, the record links to PDFs of the published application and also to the granted patent (but only if it was published in January 2007 or later).

The patent title tells it all: High Frequency Sound Teenager Dispersal Device. Apparently there are moves to boycott the company in protest at the way the bored young are being singled out.

The company is also making money by selling the same noise as ring tones. This came about in an interesting way. Some Welsh teenagers began using the same sound as a ring tone on their mobile phones. This meant that they could be alerted to a text message arriving without the teacher in class knowing. Nicknamed Teen Buzz, it spread rapidly through British classrooms and then abroad.

When Stapleton's 16-year-old daughter, Isabel, came home with the ring tone on her phone he realised that he was missing out on making extra money. He quickly came up with the "official" ring tone, Mosquito Tone®, now available via text message for £3, which he says is better. Stapleton’s father, still active as a director, replied to his son’s suggestion that the ring tone would be the icing on the cake with the riposte that it could be the cake itself.

The Silent Knight anti-snoring ring

I was in Boots the other day when I saw a "Silent Knight" finger ring for sale at £29.99, which claimed it could stop snoring.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I always check packaging for any information. There was quite a lot of intellectual property claimed:

Worldwide patents pending

UK Patent Numbers 03285392 and 03201597

US Application Number 10/730.250

Registered Design Numbers: 3015508 and 3015509

Surprisingly, what is almost certainly the most valuable asset to the owners was not claimed. Silent Knight is not a registered trade mark, nor do they claim unregistered trade mark rights by using a ™. [Note -- I checked again in February 2009 and found that they have applied for Silent Knight Ring as a British mark and Silent Knight as a European trade mark -- very sensible].

At first I was puzzled by the British patent numbers until I realised that they were filing numbers. When an application is made, there is a series running from 1 within each year. Both applications were made in 2003 -- hence the 03 at the beginning -- and were followed by a five-digit number (adding zeroes at the beginning if necessary), followed by the "check digit" for verifying the number at the end.

The UK has a Patents Status Enquiry database where entering GB0328539 (leaving out the check digit) in the application number box finds a record for the granted patent. The Acupressure finger ring had been filed for in 2003 and then refiled (hence the second number), was published in March 2005 and then granted in November 2007. Giving the actual GB 2405345 published number on the packaging would make it a lot easier for others to trace it. Granted British patents since the beginning of 2007, like this one, can be seen on a Patents Publication Enquiry database. This can be very important. The technical content in the published applications and grants may be the same, but the scope of the monopoly claims (and hence the protection) may be different. Granted UK patents retain the same number but use a B instead of an A.

The American number was also a filing number (where there are series of numbers from 1 to under 1 million, this being the 10th such series) and this was published as US 200504963, an application. The UK and the USA seem to be, in fact, the only countries where patent applications were published.

The final two numbers are indeed British registered designs, which can be found on the official database. These are for the appearance. Here is 3015509.

So how does it work ? It is a ring with a gap in it (to make it easier to put on, I suppose) with a bit on the inside sticking inwards, hence the pressure. It is meant to go on the little finger. The packaging says it is made of hallmarked silver, hence the price, and the web site states the same in bold type as if it is a valuable incentive. The British patent application  says "there is little restriction on the material used", provided it is inert, with a metal preferred, so the use of silver does seem rather pointless (and expensive).

The two inventors are from Surrey, Michael Carter-Smith and Roger Whitaker. The web site also states that NHS clinical trials are being carried out on the device. There are a number of testimonials given on the site, including a lady who said "It is wonderful how it has stopped his snoring but do you have anything for his continuous talking ?!"