Solutions to Unique Manufacturing Problems

When it comes industrial manufacturing of physical goods, whether textiles, apparel, automobiles, or otherwise, these physical goods often come with their own set of unique manufacturing challenges. Solving these unique manufacturing challenges often involves solutions as unique as the problem itself, and such solutions may be patentable.
            For example, unique manufacturing challenges are found throughout the food and beverage industry. Food and beverage products vary greatly in their properties, and developing equipment to handle these food and beverage products often poses engineering challenges that are not found anywhere else.
            Such a unique manufacturing challenge with a unique solution may be found with U.S. Pat. No. 9622505, which discloses a system and method for producing maple syrup utilizing membrane filtration stages.
            At the time the application for U.S.  Pat. No. 9622505 was filed, several attempts had already been made in the maple syrup industry to move away from evaporation to concentrate the maple syrup and to instead concentrate the maple syrup by filtering the syrup through membrane filters. Relying upon evaporation to concentrate the syrup was energy consuming and expensive, and there was a need to more effectively concentrate the syrup. Unfortunately, alternative solutions that instead used membrane filtration to concentrate the maple syrup were ineffective, as filtering the maple syrup led to clogging of the membrane filters.

            However, the inventors of U.S. Pat. No. 9622505 realized that by setting up maple syrup production in stages to first concentrate the maple syrup to a first Brix content via membrane filtration, and then use evaporation for a remainder of the concentration process, that an amount of evaporation to concentrate the maple syrup could be reduced (thus saving energy) while avoiding clogging of the membrane filters.
            At the USPTO, prosecution was very short for this application, which was likely due in part to the fact that the inventors were solving a unique problem: using filtration to concentrate a sugary product.
            So if you find yourself developing a solution to fix a problem that is unique to begin with, such as using a filter to concentrate maple syrup while avoiding clogging, it may be worthwhile to explore options for patent protection.


Popular posts from this blog

Surprising Uses for Oobleck

Image
Oobleck is a common name for a non-Newtonian fluid comprising cornstarch and water. Named after a substance humorously described in Dr. Seuss’s classic children’s story, Bartholomew and the Ooblek, the cornstarch and water concoction is frequently used in children’s science classes as a fun way to learn about fluid mechanics. You may have fond memories, yourself, of playing with oobleck as a youth. Oobleck behaves as a fluid when touched gently, but becomes hard as a solid when hit with great velocity. For example, a person could run across a swimming pool of oobleck without getting their feet wet. However, if a person stood still on the oobleck, then they would slowly sink. Because oobleck is a children’s plaything and because of its simple recipe (cornstarch and water), one may be surprised to learn that inventors have attempted to patent serious industrial uses for the material. As an example, one current patent application, US 2015/0016885 (now abandoned), is for a system of fi
Read more

Dispensing with the Formalities: Ex Parte Quayle Actions

Image
Checking my email after work one day, I was greeted with some unfortunate news: the application I was prosecuting had received yet another Office action.   Frustrated, I couldn’t resist skimming the substance of the rejection.   After all, like any patent practitioner, I thought my arguments were pretty irrefutable.   The news only got worse… or so it appeared.   The Office action was something called an “ Ex Parte Quayle action.”   Having never received one of these actions, I started mentally preparing myself to pull out the MPEP and research some arcane rejection. To my surprise, I didn’t find myself knee-deep in case law the following day.   Ex Parte Quayle actions, while somewhat inconvenient, are far from insurmountable.   In short, an Ex Parte Quayle action or “Quayle action” is issued when an application has objections remaining as to formal matters, but is otherwise allowable.   Accordingly, the mailing of these actions closes prosecution on the merits of the appl
Read more

Adaptive Headlight IP

Image
The recent Infrastructure bill signed into law by President Biden affects many things, but one aspect that affects the automotive world is adaptive headlights.  As noted by Jalopnik puts it somewhat crudely, this means “our headlights will suck way less” (link to https://jalopnik.com/finally-our-headlights-will-suck-way-less-1848067412 ). But with this sudden change, adaptive headlights in the US may be in for a particular messy IP situation since many companies may have considered it was not necessary to protect their adaptive headlight innovations in the US because of the 50-year old rule preventing such technology. Recent patents in the field from applicants such as Lumileds and Arex indicate that smaller players and startups may be able to break into the market which is expected to explode in the next few years once the final rules are implemented.  For those in the industry that have typically avoided US patent filings in the adaptive headlamp area, they may want to rethink th
Read more