Does anyone here have a patent?

[Blackberg]

Either yourself, or with partners, or through your employment?
If so, would you care to share how it came along and what's it about?

 

[jedishrfu]

Yeah, I have a few mostly software related. In my case, many came about as I was working on some project and ran into a difficulty. My solution was unique and novel enough to become a patent.

One example was when I needed to execute an external command in C code with some environment parameter being set. However the C api offered to run it with no environment or the parent environment but not an augmented environment. My solution was to run one command to get the parent environment, add my environment parameter to the list and then run the real command with the augmented environment.

It didn't seem like much at the time but my company liked it enough to patent it.

 

[jim hardy]

A couple years after i retired i finally figured out how to detect open circuits in the electromagnets that move PWR control rods .
That had become a recurring problem over my last few years (late 1990's). The connectors and cables were approaching 30 years old then.
When there's no current through the electromagnet and a connection opens, there's no indication of the open circuit. That's because it is difficult to detect whether a circuit with zero current flowing in it has opened.
So when you send power out to the electromagnet in hopes of moving the rod, well, the power only gets as far as the open circuit and stops there.
So the electromagnet doesn't energize and instead of moving the rod drops.
That's a big inconvenience.
And it happens with absolutely no warning.

I really wanted to give the guys a way to avoid that inconvenience.
So i wrote it up and sent it to a patent attorney.
it's 7177383 if you're interested in reading it.Why do you ask ?

old jm