Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

Amos Joel, pioneer in mobile phones

I was reading the obituary column in today's Daily Telegraph when I came across the obituary of Amos Joel, an inventor for Bell Telephone. He was 90 years old.

Newspaper obituaries for inventors aren't all that unusual, but this one actually mentioned the number of his key patent, 3663762 (didn't say it was American, but I suppose most readers would read between the lines).

His Mobile Communication System patent, applied for as long ago as 1970, was apparently key in preparing the groundwork for mobile phones / cell phones. Here is the main drawing.

 

Without it, the article says, mobile phone users would not be able to keep talking in a call if they moved between the hexagonal cells of the phone network. The patent's own summary says "A control center determines mobile station locations and enables a switching center to control dual access trunk circuitry to transfer an existing mobile station communication path from a formerly occupied cell to a new cell location. The switching center subsequently enables the dual access trunk to release the call connection to the formerly occupied cell."

It's good to see an inventor who made an important contribution credited in this way.

Trick or treat board game

Halloween is tonight, so here's a board game that all the family can play, the Halloween board game by Cyrilla Pecoy of New York state. The players simulate a trip around their neighbourhood gathering goodies -- including a visit to the cemetery and a haunted house.   

Last year I also posted on Halloween patents. Enjoy your evening !

Gunther von Hagens and plastination

Dr Gunther von Hagens has been touring with his exhibition of "plastinated" bodies. These are corpses which are preserved permanently with the skin removed and the tissues filled with plastic. Some people may find it fascinating to see the muscles and so on below the skin of complete bodies. I declined to see it  when it was last in London, in 2003. It's certainly ideal for medical students.

Now it's back for a second visit. This is the BodyWorlds exhibition which runs to the end of March 2009. As ever, I wondered if patents were involved. There seem to be a number of patents, with the one illustrated being the one that gives the best idea of what we are talking about.

It is from his Method for Preserving Large Sections of Biological Tissue with Polymers. There's plenty of detail for anyone interested in knowing more in the patent specification.

Getting under the skin

Each month I write a Patent of the Month story for the Ideas21 website.

This October, it's about injecting tracking devices into potential kidnap victims.

The Vertebrae® Sanitary Cabin

Last Thursday I noticed in the free Metro newspaper a short piece about Paul Hernon, a Huddersfield inventor who has designed a single unit for a bathroom.

It would have been helpful for those wanting more information to mention that Hernon has a patent for a Sanitary cabin, which gives a lot of detail.  The revised grant document calls it Modular Furniture. Nor does the article mention that Vertebrae is a registered trade mark. Here is the main drawing.

 Each segment of equipment rotates off a single metal column in the middle of the room. The Elite Choice website has an illustrated article and states that it was inspired by the Swiss army knife.

Most interesting, perhaps, is that it was published as a patent application, and therefore revealed to the world, in December 2002 -- nearly six years ago. Hardly news, but certainly an interesting idea in saving space in bathrooms.

The iPod® MP3 player

I write a Patent of the Month story for the Ideas21 website, and September's tells the story behind the iPod® MP3 player, and how Kane Kramer, a British inventor, had applied for a patent for its forerunner. In 1981 he was simply ahead of his time.