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New Quiz
The safest table saw
Have a look at this amazing
YouTube
video on an invention that will certainly save some fingers... Can
you find a corresponding patent for this invention? If so, please list the name
of the inventor and the oldest priority number!
An amazing saw safety
system
Solution to the previous Quiz
The electric jacket
Everyone has heard of the Taser, a controversial, non-lethal weapon
that uses high-voltage pulses to respond to resistance. Based on a similar
principle, one can imagine a defensive jacket used to protect a person from
violence. When activated, such a jacket produces electric current pulses and
prevents any person from unauthorised contact with the wearer's body.
Try finding patents covering this invention using
esp@cenet®
Solution
Step one: To find similar
patents, identify the most pertinent aspects of the invention -- common
technical features that may be found in related patents -- and for each aspect,
define a comprehensive set of synonyms. To perform the search, the following
set of synonyms can be combined as keywords in the patent database.
In this case, the following concepts -- groups of synonyms covering
the different aspects of the invention -- can be defined:
- jacket, suit, garment
- electr*, volt*, shock
- deterr*, protect*
The combination “electr*, shock, garment” yields a
preliminary
list containing one good document:
A protective garment,
WO2005104885.This
patent relates to a garment meant to protect its wearer from aggressive
animals
Step 2: Instead of using the
classification symbols assigned to that document that relate more to animal
protecting garments, one can continue the search checking the cited documents
that can be found in
the
corresponding European Patent Register record.
Checking the cited patents, additional garments of that type can be
retrieved:
Electrically chargeable garment,
US5158039
Such a search can also be continued retrieving additional hints on
the Internet.
A Google search: electric jacket defence, yields
some interesting results, like this site for the company
producing the depicted product.
In the picture Yolita Nugent is mentioned as one of the designers.
An inventor search in esp@cenet® for this name yields:
Electrically charged self-defence wearable,
US6961227,
which is obviously the patent covering the self-defence suit above.
The documents found provide some more results like:
Non-lethal electric apparel weapon,
US2004264099
Such a search is not trivial as this invention does not fall into a
well-defined category. In addition, the most relevant patent we found did not
contain common names to cover jacket or garments. Instead the applicant used
wearable, not an obvious keyword choice. All these factors made this search
even more difficult.
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