Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

Birmingham and the PATLIB network

Yesterday I visited the intellectual property collection at Birmingham Public Library, one of the PATLIB centres.

PATLIB consists of libraries in the UK which provide help in searching for patents, trade marks and designs, and which also help in other ways related to intellectual property rights. There are lots of databases out there on the Web but it's difficult for novices to know how to get the best out of them, or how to interpret the results. 

Matthew Jelfs, one of their librarians, explained to me about the extensive effort that they make in providing seminars and making visits. They do not restrict what they do to the West Midlands, either. Over 130 people have attended their seminars in the past 12 months. They have private cubicles with a PC in them, so that inventors can explain their ideas in private to a librarian and watch a search being carried out for them. There is also an extensive and active business library up the staircase.

Like the other PATLIB libraries, much of what they do is free of charge. The British Library is also a member of the system. Contact details of all the libraries are available on the Web, and it is always best to telephone to ask if an appointment is necessary, as visitors are likely to get a lot more out of it then.

The reason I was in Birmingham was that some of us were attending the World of Learning Awards 2008. Sadly, we didn't win our category, E-learning Solution of the Year. This was the free intellectual property courses we provide which people can work through on the Internet, a collaboration with Nelson Croom. Quite a few people have signed up but there's room for plenty more on the web site.

I spent the rest of yesterday exploring some of Birmingham's rich industrial heritage of canals, factories and warehouses.

The Ultrabattery

Traditionally batteries for use in electric or hybrid cars are big, expensive and need to be recharged frequently. The Ultrabattery looks like a big step forward in dealing with these problems.

Australia's CSIRO has a page explaining about the project. A lead acid battery is linked to a supercapacitor and means that recharging the battery does not, as previously happened to that variety of battery, produce a residue which shortens the life of the battery. The new design means that its "cycle life" is four times longer than conventional lead acid batteries, there is 50% more power, and the cost is a lot less than the nickel-metal batteries which are normally used for cars. Tests are still on-going.

CSIRO has signed a commercialisation and distribution agreement for the Ultrabattery with Japan's Furukawa Battery Company, says the CSIRO site. In fact Furukawa seems to be more involved than that, as four of the five inventors are Japanese, and Furukawa are a joint applicant for the patent application, Optimised Energy Storage Device, which was published in September 2008.

Also relevant, I think, is their Improved energy storage device, with its main illustration shown here.  

At present it is only an application for protection, but as the search report at the end of the 40 page patent specification does not list any X or Y citations, suggesting that it had been done before, the future looks good for the invention as there is so much interest now in electric cars. The problem is ensuring cheap, compact storage in the batteries and not having to recharge all the time.

The 2008 Cracking Ideas Competition

Yesterday I attended the finals of the 2008 Cracking Ideas Competition, where school children enter inventions from seven regions in the UK, at London's Science Museum.

"Cracking Ideas" is based on the Wallace and Gromit characters by Aardman Animations Limited, and is sponsored by the UK Intellectual Property Office. The idea is to encourage interest in innovation among children. Nick Park chose the winning invention. It was hinted that it may appear in his next Wallace and Gromit short film, A matter of loaf and death.

A press release has lots of details including images of the inventions. The winning entry was for Charlie the Chair Stacker, by Great Arley School in Lancashire. The idea was to save work for their caretaker.  

More interesting for the many children present was the actual presence of Wallace and Gromit ! I had no idea Gromit was so big. Here is a picture of Wallace handing over the envelope with the winner's name to David Lammy, the Minister for Higher Education and Intellectual Property.

I'm quite a fan, too, and was pleased to have a picture taken with my two heroes. I'm the one in the middle.

I was pleased to be able to talk to the father of Samuel Houghton, who as a five-year old received a patent. I posted in April about the invention. Dad, who is a patent attorney, promised me that while he did write the formal claims they were indeed based on his son's ideas.

Cheering the side on

Cheering on your side in sports is something that spectators can get involved in, not just the cheerleaders. The University of Nebraska has patented an invention to get everyone involved.

The main drawing from their Sound generating apparatus for use with gloves and similar articles is   

shown here. As the patent explains, many fans wear gloves in cold weather. But the gloves themselves muffle the sound of any attempt to applaud. Hence "the self-contained electronic sound assembly 12 includes a power source 18, a sensor 20, an electronic circuit 22 for sound storage and driving sound generation, and an audio speaker 24."

In a second embodiment, the sensor is replaced by a switch to initiate the sound sequence. I hope that the university -- with a strong American football team, the Cornhuskers -- benefit from it. It must be an interesting if tiring experience to be surrounded by fans whose gloves were simultaneously giving off recorded cheers, songs and so on.