Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

Ring pulls for cans

I was reading today's Metro when I came across a "Weird fact of the day" stating that Richmond, Virginia was the place which had the first canned beer (Krueger's Finest, in 1935). It also stated that local inventor Dan Cudzik had designed the first stay-on, non-detachable ring pull for cans -- apparently the town's only other "claim to fame".

This was a new one to me, and indeed Daniel Cudzik, working for Reynolds Metals, applied in 1972 for an Easy-open wall patent. Here is its main drawing.

 

There is the familiar U-shaped design. Thank you, Metro.

What I had been familiar with was the first ring-pull itself, which dates back to 1965 with an application by a couple of Ohio inventors for a Ring-shaped tab for tear strips of containers. The story goes that Ermal Fraze was at a picnic and nobody had bought along a "church key", the tool with a pointed end that was used in the old days to pierce a can at two sides of the top. One opening was made big enough to drink from, the other was enough to relieve the pressure (otherwise beer went up your nose).

Anyway, Fraze wondered how to open his beer can. He ended up using the car bumper, with beer all over the grass. As so often, his thought was "there must be a better way". An opening device built into the can was needed.

One night not long after, goes the story, Fraze drank too much coffee and couldn't sleep. He went down to his workshop and tinkered away until he had worked out the basic principles of the detachable ring-pull. It helped that he ran a machine tools business and so knew what he was doing. 

In fact one source at least claims that Fraze also patented the non detachable ring pull, in 1977, but this would be later than the Cudzik patent. It does, however, look much more like the one we nowadays normally use. The Easy-open ecology end was in fact by Omar Brown but on behalf of Ermal Fraze as the applicant. Here is its main drawing.

Microsoft and its Magic Wand patent application

It took some time for me to identify it, but a story in the BBC about Microsoft's "Magic wand" patent application was tracked down as US 2009/121894, indeed titled Magic wand, which was published 15 May 2009.

It would have been helpful if it, and the many other news stories, had given the actual publication number. This is only an attempt to get protection, and not a granted patent, as some news stories say.

My usual Espacenet source does not yet give it as a document so I've linked to the official USPTO web site, which gives the description and claims as text, but the actual document (showing drawings) as tiffs. You have to have the right software to load it.

Magic wand is thought to be Microsoft's answer to the Nintendo Wii®. I'll leave it to the experts to "compare and contrast". This is a drawing from it.

 

The summary provided by Microsoft certainly sounds like it can do the same as the Nintendo product, but note the final sentence:

" The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture that can facilitate rich interaction with and/or management of environmental components included in an environment. The architecture can exist in whole or in part in a housing that can resemble a wand or similar object. The architecture can utilize one or more sensor from a collection of sensors to determine an orientation or gesture in connection with the wand, and can further issue an instruction to update a state of an environmental component based upon the orientation. In addition, the architecture can include an advisor component to provide contextual and/or comprehensive guidance in an intuitive manner."

Saving water in lavatory cisterns

We had an energy saving day at work today. Stalls at the staff canteen displayed literature about how to save energy, as explained by the library's power company.

One of the giveaways was a packet labelled Save-a-flush®, manufactured by KMA (UK) Limited. It has on it

Patent No 2319788

Patent No US 6243 886 B1

Sometimes it pays to look at patents from different countries for the same invention. The British patent application as found on Espacenet gives the inventor as Colin John Kerwin, and he and another as the applicants (who will "work" the invention). The American patent instead gives KMA (UK) as the applicant, information that might not have been known. What is not clear is how they got the rights -- was it Kerwin's company, did he sell the rights, and so on.

So, how does the Water saving insert for W.C. cistern work ? The perforated packet, a bit bigger than a paperback, contains beads rattling around. When placed in a cistern the beads absorb water and the packet swells in size. This means less water is used when flushing occurs, as the ball float rests on the packet. Here is the main drawing.

 

I recall seeing another product that did the same thing in a different way, Hippo the Water Saver®. Here the plastic envelope itself expands. They have a colourful website.

Smart meters

The BBC has an article today stating the British government intends to have every household equipped with smart meters by the end of 2020.

These are devices that monitor and display gas and electricity usage information to householders while also having the ability to signal the usage to the utility company, usually by a wireless transmission to say a vehicle going down the street (or by phone).

The advantage to the company is that they get cheap, timely and accurate data (fewer arguments with consumers), while householders get information on consumption and cost so that they are more aware of the expense. Cut backs in usage would save 2% of current energy use, it is hoped.

As usual inventors have been working on equipment that could be used for this purpose, and a number of trials are being carried out. Below is the main drawing from a Utility monitoring device, system and method by a Canadian inventor.

Industry sources, say the article, estimate the cost at £7 billion, or about £15 per household. Even if the householder had to pay that, it would quickly be recouped by lower energy bills.