Posted on 06/04/2006 12:57:28 PM PDT by Read2Know
SARATOGA SPRINGS -- It all started last winter, with a faulty remote starter on her 1996 Chevrolet Lumina.
Like many others, Sarah Dodge dreaded the thought of having to brave the elements to warm up her car before school.
In today's world of high-tech gizmos, the 18-year-old senior at Saratoga Springs High School figured there had to be a better solution.
Turns out, there was -- and now Sarah is the first student in a pre-engineering program at the school to have a federal patent pending, teacher Michael Gallagher said.
(Excerpt) Read more at poststar.com ...
Jeeks, this is an obvious use of existing technology and should not get a patent.
Heh, yeah, that's one good use. ;-)
The article seemed to be written with the underlying thought, "You can start your car from anywhere in the world!"
My first thought was, "Why?"
Let's say you're vacationing in Japan for a month. You're car's parked at O'hare in the dead of winter. You'd want to start it up every so often to keep the battery charged. Also, as soon as you land so it's nice and toasty and the windows are de-iced.
I bet myself that it would be 6 posts before somebody said something negative about this young lady nad her invention.
I was wrong, it was 4 posts.
So it can call you back and tell you it's OK!
That's what I was thinking. It's also wildly impractical, since you have to pay perpetual monthly cell-phone fees for your car (on top of the fees for the cell-phone you might want to use to trigger the car remotely) just to keep the "remote starting" feature working -- it would be cheaper to fix the broken one, or install an aftermarket remote starter.
Doing it was a good "project" and I'm sure she learned a lot in the process, which is fine, but it's not the kind of thing any manufacturer is going to put into practice or pay her money for "inventing".
I hope she gets a couple million, either way.
Here's hoping her idea is not turned into a new tool for ripping off cars!
Sounds like a great idea until she finds a wrong number has turned on her car and it's idled the tank empty while she slept.
Actually, can't the terrorists claim "prior art" on the use of cell phones for ingnitioon purposes?
ignition, that is.
Anti idling laws in many state make this a nonmoving violation...
I remember the quick-release socket suit, but can you remind us of the laser lawsuit? What are the details there?
Yep. I hope she at least gets enough to pay for college.
Maybe she can work on a wireless internet interface; have it glom onto unsecured hot spots before initiating its own cell connection. Ping, start. Ping, stop. Have it email your parents when you wreck. The possibilities are as endless as they are useless. ;-)
How dare you! How brazen!
(When does she turn 18)?
Adjust several servos to the rack and pinion steering, one tone form the #3 turns to the right, one tone of the #1 turns to the left, Tone of the #2 returns to center, Brakes on #6, throttle on #5, Idle on #5, lights on #9, windshield wiper on #7 and defrost on #8. Just use the cell phone camera to drive the car. Let the car send back it's gauge values and speedometer with GIS.
That way she can put her mascara on without looking in the rear view mirror.
"2. Gould invented the laser during the late 1950's while a graduate student at the University of Columbia, but he was not taken seriously for decades. Now with hundreds of licensees and possibly more than $100 million in gross licensing revenue, he is recognized as a laser pioneer."
http://www.ipmall.info/hosted_resources/pubspapers/jorda_11_02_98.asp
That might not be the way the Examiner sees it.
A cell phone is a device for communicating, principally by voice.
A remote starter is a way of sending an encoded digital signal to a control circuit that allows preheating or airconditioning a car.
To use something for a purpose that never ocurred to the inventors of the cellphone brings New Art to the field of remote starters. In effect, the cellphone people slap their collective heads, and say, "We know people adapted cellphones to nefarious uses, so it SHOULD have been obvious to us that you can start a car...But we never practiced such an invention!!!"
If we used the test of existing technology, there would be no inventions except the wheel, the inclined plane and the lever. In the case of the wheel, it could be argued that tires, bagels, ball bearings, and Aztec Calenders were all species of the original invention...it just was not written broadly enough. ( Assuming the wheel did not predate all existing Patent Law.)
Several of my issued patents were granted for a non-obvious use of materials normally used in one application applied to a field not contemplated by either the field or by the makers of the product, and in the body of the patent is a citation of the material, its manufacturer, trade name, and patents related to the material ..(As taught in US Patent 6, xxx,xxx).
Suppose, for example, you found that Fleer's Bubble Gum had some remarkable property that allowed it to repair turbojet compressors. Fleer's would not have thought of it. GE or Rolls would not have thought of it. Such an application of it would be, by definition, non-obvious, and of commercial value. You would protect such use, by writing an application for "A Polyisoprene Based Turbine Repair Compound", and describe where to obtain the material (Candy Store) and how to prepare and apply the material, including instructions for mixing such as "Twinshell blenders, Banbury mills, Rotary mechanical shearing devices, or by chewing for five minutes at 37°C..."etc.
This is so cool. I hope she makes it.
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