Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

The Tangle Teezer®

Dragons' Den is an entertaining TV programme as so often those asking for cash for their ideas are naive, but sometimes the experts do get it wrong. Shaun Pulfrey's Tangle Teezer® is an example.

A year ago he asked for £85,000 in return for a 15% stake in his new hairbrush. Its teeth are designed to flex just the right amount to minimise tugging while smoothing the cuticles, says a story on the invention. An experienced London hairdresser, Pulfrey had thought of the idea 15 years ago but only made a prototype in 2004. All the dragons dismissed it.

A few weeks ago, Boots agreed to stock the product at 600 stores. Turnover (largely on the Internet, at £9.95) is already £800,000 annually, a quarter of which is profit. It looks as if the dragons missed out on a nice profit.

I had a look at the intellectual property behind the idea. In March 2005 Pulfrey applied for a European Community trade mark for the name, probably his most powerful selling tool.

In March 2007 he applied for a British patent, which was published a week ago as a Hair care device.

Then in April 2007 he applied for a Community design, one of the drawings of which is shown here.

In October 2007 he applied for design protection in the USA with American "design patent" D576804.

Finally in January 2008 he filed for a US trade mark/ trademark for the name. There may be other applications waiting publication, such as, perhaps, an American patent application.

The difference between designs and patents is, broadly speaking, that the former protects the appearance while the latter protects how it works. He used Marks & Clerk, a firm of patent attorneys, to advise him on his strategy and to write the applications. 

A problem for anyone interesting in foreign protection is that this must be sought within 12 months of filing for a patent, or within 6 months of filing for a design. "Filing out of convention" by missing those deadlines means that your own domestic filings can be used to show that the idea is not new. Many who might be interested in filing abroad do not (yet) have the finance, or are not certain of product appeal, and therefore decide not to gamble on filing. Failure to file in a country means that the idea can be used there by others.

The jet-propelled wing

As I write, it is just a few hours until Yves Rossy attempts to cross the English Channel using a jet-propelled wing. Success would mean the first such flight.

I can only find one published patent application for him, the Pneumatic Gliding Wing for a Freefall Jumper. Here is the main drawing.

Although it certainly looks like the concept, the model he intends to use may be a little different in how power is generated. This patent application talks of using pressurised gas, while the Daily Telegraph's story talks of kerosene (paraffin) powered gas turbines. In both versions (if they are different) a parachute is used to end the flight.

Predicting the electronic future in 1968

It is either courageous or foolhardy to predict changes in technology.

I came across an example of this the other day in the August 1968 issue of the National Geographic, in an article about crystals (electronics) by Kenneth Weaver and James Blair, on page 294. Based on discussions with "industry leaders", they suggested four advances in electronics.

At department stores, clerks will take your personal identification card, put it in a slot connected by computer to local banks, and transfer money from your account to theirs. A phone line, actually, but very accurate.

In homes, terminals linked to a master computer will run your household, controlling your appliances. You will be able to phone in to start the oven. No suggestion of Bluetooth technology meaning that the appliances can talk to each other. Intelligent or smart homes is the usual term for what is still an infant technology. 

Books from the local library will be reproduced on a screen in the home, having been recorded on magnetic tape, and newspapers will be printed out from a machine in the home. The power of digital media had not been foreseen with Google Books and the like, and most people in the UK at least get updated news from the Web, or read free daily papers piled up at stations.

Lastly, cars will have a computer "no bigger than a teacup" to control the ignition and the dashboard instruments, and radar will monitor the distance to the next car, sounding a warning if they are too close. I scoffed at the idea that radar would be used, but apparently this concept is already available in some cars, and is called adaptive cruise control. 

An example is the illustrated Adaptive cruise control system by Hitachi.

And when did they think these ideas would become reality ? Writing 40 years ago, these industry leaders, talking up the ideas, thought once large-scale chips appeared "some years hence".

More on anti-snoring inventions

Probably this blog's most popular posting ever was about the Silent Knight anti-snoring ring. Here are a couple more proposed remedies for this ailment.

There's the Device for curing snoring sickness by Colin Sullivan of Birchgrove, Australia, which was applied for in 1981. It blows air at the patient through the tube. The basic approach seems to be one used by many inventors, as there are 49 citings of this invention. Here is the main drawing.

That means that 49 later applications had the Sullivan application referred to in the "search report" compiled by the patent office examiner, where they are checking to see if the invention seems to be new. This can be checked for many documents on the Espacenet® database by clicking on the red "View list of citing documents" link.

These include the Snore-inhibiting device by David Sheehan of California, shown here. This is, it seems, a field dominated by (mostly American) private inventors. That means that if someone asks if an invention has been put on the market, it is difficult to search for, as the inventor's name may not be mentioned (the inventor could have sold out to a company, for example). Company names make searching a lot easier.

Another such citing is the Nasal mask assembly for nasal delivery by Roy Gomez of Virginia. It's not actually meant to alleviate snoring, but rather to help hospital patients with breathing problems. It's still related to the Sullivan breathing device, and that's why that was cited against it as relevant.

My own thoughts are that if you want to purchase a device to help with snoring, it is best to get advice from experts, such as the recommended products on the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea Association site.

Universal Studios theme parks

I grew up in America, but have only visited one theme park there -- Universal Studios, in Los Angeles, in about 1992.

I can't remember in detail what I saw, and other attractions have no doubt been added. Here are a few patents by Universal Studios which are, I believe, based on their films.

I recall a tram ride, which included going through a flooding tube tunnel (bad for weak hearts, surely), and then seeing a fisherman on a boat dragged into the water by a shark -- Jaws, of course.  I don't recall an explosion as Jaws is blown up, as in the movie, but the drawing shows this happening in their Explosion simulator.

The patent says it has to be capable of being "achieved repeatedly on a high duty cycle", which must be the hard part.

There is a "Jurassic Park The Ride" and I wonder if it includes what features in the Ride attraction having animated figures , where the vehicles descend waterfalls while threatened by the said figures rushing towards them.

Or maybe it's the Waterfall ride attraction , which has rafts going down a flume. 

 

I think that the Men in Black™ Alien Attack™ ride is based on the technology set out in the Amusement System patent. How you shoot up the aliens from your vehicle is depicted both in the illustration and lovingly in the patent.

Lastly, Twister has clearly inspired the Amusement attraction with man-made tornado, where the occupants of a house experience a tornado. Again it has to be capable of being recreated for the next group of visitors, since "the tornado experience has ended and the guests proceed to the exit".

The Sony Reader

I've been watching on the BBC about the Sony Reader, the "electronic book" that's the size of a paperback and which opens up like a book.

It sells in the UK for £199 and has 200 MB, enough for 160 average length books. A CD with 100 classics is included in the price. Power demand is traditionally the problem with such devices. This device only uses power when pages are turned, and the battery life is enough for 1680 page turns. Nor is there any glare, and it can be read in bright light.

All this is due to the fact that the wording within the screen is based on electronic ink, or e-ink. This technology is owned by E-Ink Technologies of Cambridge, MA. The basic idea is using silicon rubber stamps to print tiny computer circuits onto the surface. The electronic ink consists of millions of tiny capsules, filled with a dark dye, floating in a substance like vegetable oil. The capsules contain negatively charged white chips that move either up or down within the capsules in response to a positive charge applied to the medium's surface, and that produces the words.

Looking around in the patent databases suggests to me that Sony has applied for a patent for a Light-emitting display device , where problems of diminishing light quality are dealt with. Here is the main drawing. 

 

As for the handheld electronic book itself, that seems to have been published as the Method and apparatus for presenting electronic literary macrames on handheld computer systems. It refers specifically to electronic books. Here is the main drawing.

I've always been doubtful about electronic books, but the fact that this is a device which in fact allows a large number of books to be accessed from a single CD-ROM makes it more appealing. I am a fast reader, and hence always run out of books to read when on holiday.

This posting has been revised from an earlier version to take account of the e-ink technology used as I had incorrectly attributed it to OLED technology, another display technique.

Sandwich containers

My colleague Maria Lampert often passes me things with patent numbers on them. They show how patents get used in the real world (many are never actually used). This time it was a sandwich container purchased at Marks & Spencers.

Or rather, the piece of cardboard which showed the barcode, with below it

Patent Pending GB0417488.4

That number dates back to 2004, when MY Operations Limited, of Leeds, applied for a patent for a Carton which was published under the Patent Cooperation Treaty system. Nampak Cartons and Healthcare Limited (of the same address) is given as the applicant under the European Patent Convention, where British protection is being requested.

 It's a very familiar type -- transparent windows so that the sandwich can be seen, and cardboard halves. "Frangible means" are included, says the summary (it means breakable). There are 25 pages in the patent specification. Preferably it's formed from a single blank, apparently. Here is the main drawing.

There's probably someone out there who collects such examples. In the meantime, it's yet another example of how throwaway packaging is often patented following research to provide a cheap yet effective solution to a problem.

The banana guard

My colleague Maria Lampert owns a banana guard to protect bananas from bruising. She was pleased to find patent information on it.

The one she has is orange coloured (why not yellow), and is curved and bulky, to allow most bananas to fit regardless or size or curvature. It has a series of tiny holes along it, and clips together.

It has the familiar recycle symbol with a 5 inside it, which the Wikipedia Resin identification code site explains means it is made of polypropylene. It also says "Made in Canada" (I would have thought the Far East would be a cheaper place to make it), and "US Pat. 6,612,440". That's on the inside: "Banana Guard" is on the outside. Those words do not seem to have been registered, which surprised me. I would have expected the trade mark to be more valuable than a patent.

Above is the drawing of the Banana Protective Device by David Agulnik of Vancouver, which explains the Canadian link. The actual product is a bit different: one series of holes, and the halves attach near the top to form a J (and its reverse) shape when opened up.

In the UK, there's a web site if you want to buy one for £4.99. It was shown on Dragons' Den a few years ago, where an offer from three dragons was turned down. According to a web source, three doctors collaborated on it (if as inventors, they should all be named on the patent, not just Agulnik). 700,000 units have been sold.

Many must think that it's too simple to be patented. Here's the main drawing from another, later patent that does the same job in a different way.