Florida Intellectual Property Law Blog

Nephros, Inc. has announced that it would be working with the United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico for developing a portable personal water purification system. The water purification system is meant for the future soldiers.

The aforementioned project is to be funded under the Department of Defense budget activity for Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E). The appropriation is a portion of the HR5631, the "Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2007, which has been signed into law on September 29, 2006 by President Bush.

According to an article in prnewswire.com, Nephros has claimed that its patented technology has been an important invention in offering reliable as well as affordable solution for water filtration. The basis for the portable system is the Dual stage cold Sterilization Ultrafilter ("DSU") technology from Nephros. The company claims that this filter can eliminate parasites, viruses, bacteria and other bio-toxins.

As a Fort Lauderdale patent attorney, with a special interest in boat patents, I am always interested in news relating to new boating patents, products, and software.  Fort Lauderdale patent attorneys are responsible for securing a number of innovations relating to this industry, and the city is a major yachting center, with 42,000 resident yachts and over 100 marinas and boatyards.  In fact, South Florida is home to the annual International Boatbuilders Exhibition & Conference.

 A joint effort for patenting boating equipment by the Lighting Science Group Corporation (LSG), focusing on providing environmentally responsible and energy efficient lighting solutions and Callenberg Engineering Inc., which is also a supplier of automation, electrical as well as HVAC systems is on the way.  According to an article in prnewswire.com the companies have joined hands for developing Light Emitting Diode (LED) light bulbs and fixtures that are capable of meeting the rigorous requirements in order to withstand life at sea.

At present, both the companies are working for developing bollard fixtures, LED luminaires, LED replacement lamps and down light fixtures for the marine industry. This all-new technology will be marketed and distributed to the marine industry under the Lighting Science brand by Callenberg.

As reported in prnewswire.com, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ron Lusk of Lighting Science said that the LED-based technologies offer the best lighting solutions for almost every application. LSG conveniently satisfies the cruise and commercial shipping markets that are in need of durable, reliable and cost-effective equipments.

In 2007 Seatrade Cruising Convention in Miami, Florida, new boating products are to be introduced and displayed.

As a Fort Lauderdale patent attorney, with a special interest in boat patents, I am always looking for interesting news relating to new boating patents, products, and software.  Fort Lauderdale patent attorneys are responsible for securing a number of innovations relating to this industry, and the city is a major yachting center, with 42,000 resident yachts and over 100 marinas and boatyards.  In fact, South Florida is home to the annual International Boatbuilders Exhibition & Conference.

Boat patents are especially important considering the invention of collapsible boat stature.  In the collapsible boat, the sections are styled in such a fashion that they may be stacked in order to ease transportation of the boat. More so, the boat encloses such a structure that its sections can be readily and easily assembled to become waterproof on being fully assembled, according to an article in www.freepatentsonline.com.      

The collapsible boat consist a number of sections including a stern section and a bow section. The said sections are adapted to be stacked in a nested assembly and transported. This means, each section for securing the said sections form end-to-end relation, forms a leak proof and rigid boat. This improvement comprises of a plurality of sections. Each of the said sections have side walls and end walls. Each of these sections has L-shaped bar extending laterally on one end adjacent top thereof from side wall to side wall. Further there is a second L-shaped bar on the other end of the said section extending laterally and adjacent the top.

A number of marine industry patents have been in the news lately.  Among those is the marine equipment patent issued for the SuperSting R8 Marine of the AGI group.  This is an innovative Marine Logging System.  As per the recent news report of  www.idswater.com, the new system consisting the Marine Log Manager software, the SuperSting Marine and an electrode towing cable, makes it all the more convenient for formatting data. It also   helps in maneuvering the boat track and arranging the data for the inversion software.

While the SuperSting Marine serves to record and store the required data, the Marine Log Manager software does the most significant job of editing and formatting the recorded data. It is also made to engineer the boat track and the resistivity data on the image of an imported map. Also, unlike the regular metal electrodes, its anti-corrosive graphite electrode and the water block prevent the water from infiltrating into the electrode cable and damaging it.

As a Fort Lauderdale patent attorney with a special interest in boat patents and the yachting industry in general, I am lucky to be in a city of over 42,000 yachts and over 100 marinas.  Nevertheless, I have never come across a vessel as unusual as the one pictured to the left. 

According to an article relating to patenting boat designs  at thenewstribune.com . This 99-foot mystery vessel with legs was designed as a metallic spider riding on two pontoons appeared from a fog bank on the dock at Port of Ilwaco. The Spider boat attracted much attention, and the owner of the boat was still obscure when the photographs of the craft were released. 

Inventor and patent holder is Ugo Conti and his patent for the vessel was approved in April 2005. The description of the boat stated that the vessel had a pair of flexible hulls flexibly coupled to a 'cabin' between and above the hulls. This allowed the hulls to independently follow the surface of the water and the motor pods have been hinged to the back of the hulls.

Though there were no comments from the inventor when contacted by the thenewstribune.com, Conti's wife, Isabella accepted that the vessel was Marine Advanced Research's creation that is owned by Ugo Conti. She also cited that the team involved in operations was working under strict confidentiality agreements.

A marine equipment patent has recently issued for a new and novel lightning rod.  According to an article posted in yachtinsure.com, this patent is licensed selectively to Marine Lightning Protection Inc.

The original lightning rod was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1750. This lightning rod served the purpose of protecting the ships. Franklin later concluded that a lightning rod could shield a building from the strike of a lightning by providing an appropriate path for the current to flow.

This scientific technology is still going through modern-day refinements for the marine protection. Ewen Thomson of the University of Florida applied the traditional science that has been used in lightning protection systems for the purpose of ground installations.

According to Dr. Thomson, the removal of the invalid key assumptions in the traditional model and the reinterpretation of the fundamental science have brought forth a new model, that allowed the development of the innovative technology by overcoming the practical limitations of the traditional model.

It appears new and innovative designs are in order for boats, with a recent patent being issued for Boat Ramp, according to an article at www.patentstorm.us. The boat is enclosed in a ladder-style frame with C-shaped elongated lateral side rails secured in separate parallel conditions and C-shaped cross support beams. There are two ends to the frame, one at the water end and the other at the shore end.

The patented invention is designed to provide sufficient support for the boat. The boat, at the shore end, engages a braced winch assembly used for loading boats onto the ramp. The components of the ramp are designed specifically to enable parcel shipment to any location of all components in an unassembled condition and can be easily assembled through well-known and widely used household tools.

The groundbreaking invention of Eolic Marine Electrical Generator “GEEM” has been granted United States Patent No. 20030201645. According to an article in freepatentsonline.com, the generator captures the huge impulse force of water and wind in generating mechanical energy and re-transforms the mechanical energy into clean and ecological electrical energy that does not require the consumption of vital oxygen.

The immense split, self-regulating panels are radially fixed to a rotary central shaft in a dihedral angle. With this arrangement, it captures by shock the inexhaustible energy of the waves, the ocean currents or the wind. The panels can also be fixed on flying or rotary machines of high speed that has panels formed by oscillating vanes at a certain time of a turn of 360 degrees.

The invention would permit the renewal of resources as well as help obtain electrical energy from any part of the planet such as from forests, cities, deserts, countryside, seas, and mountains.