Invention Ideas Prior Art

What and why

The following is a list of novel, useful, and non-obvious inventions that I have conceived. The date of publication and a description of each invention followings.

I have experienced the frustration of having conceived of an invention without publishing only to find later that somebody else patented the idea, blocking me from using my own invention. That is the motivation behind publishing here.

Digit wrapper

Published: 2009, November, 3

An enclosure for the tips of human digits, i.e. fingers and toes is described. The enclosure is made of an impereable material. The enclosure can be attached over the digit such as with an adhesive, elastic band, friction, cylindrical braid (Chinese finger trap), or other method so as to attempt to create an impermeable seal around the tip of the digit. The enclosure can be made with different radii to accommodate different digit sizes. The axial length of the enclosure is sufficient to completely envelope the nail, including the eponychium (cuticle).

The enclosure may be rigid, amorphous (bag-like), or membranous (stretchy). A rigid enclosure design might be applied to the digit as two pieces above and below or to the left and right sides. An amorphous or membranous design might be applied by unrolling the enclosing material from an inside-out toroidal roll (as is common for the application of a condom).

The digit wrapper may or may not include padding inside. The digit wrapper may or may not include a liquid, gel, or powder for lubrication or for medication. The digit wrapper is capable of containing a medicating substance. The digit wrapper eliminates almost all air from around the digit, providing enough tightness that a small amount of a medicating substance is sufficient to ensure that all epidermal (external) surfaces of the digit, including the skin, nail plate, hyponychium, paronychium, eponychium, nail fold, and nail groove are contacted by the medicating substance.

Use of the digit wrapper with topical anti-fungal medications can improve the efficacy of such treatments for fungal infections of the digits and nails.

Cattle driven electric power generation

Published: 2009, October, 27

A device akin to a hamster exercise wheel but at a scale for bovine (cow), procine (pig) or other cattle used in meat production. The axis of the cylindrical wheel is horizontal. The height of the wheel (diameter of the cylinder) is at least twice that of the animal. One side, the entrance side, is supported by one or more crosspiece with enough radial spacing to allow the animal to enter and exit the wheel. Caging bars attached to the entrance side of the wheel hold the animal within the wheel. One section of caging is a gate though which the animal passes when entering and exiting the wheel. An axle at the hub of the wheel is suspended from the entrance side of the wheel with its structural strength provided by that suspension.

The second side of the wheel (end of the cylinder) is called the power side. The axle rod extends beyond the end of the wheel on the power side and rotates to drive an electric generator. A gearing system or chain linkage can be used to support the axle rod and provide aditional strength for it. Caging bars on the power side also hold the animal within the wheel.

An circular opening in the wheel allows a support to suspend food and water holders within the wheel and accessible near the animal's mouth. This opening requires that the strength to hold wheel be provided by the axle support on the entrance side of the wheel. Food is dispensed as the wheel turns in order to give the animal incentive to turn the wheel. Holes in the circumfrence material are large enough to allow manure to break up and fall through but small enough that the animal's feet can not fall through. Horizontally attached bars within the whell around its circumference give the animal traction with which to turn the wheel.

An alternative implementation uses rollers below the wheel to provide suspension and transfer rotational energy to the electric generator. This implementation requires less strength than axle-based suspension. Other rollers are required to keep the wheel aligned. The circular opening is still required to allow space to suspend the food and water holders on the power side. The axle rod is still required to provide the strength to support the caging on the power side of the wheel.

This system has the benefit of generating electricity for purposes such as driving the public power grid. It also has the benefit of stimulating faster muscle growth and a higher muscle to fat ratio in the animal than is possible with existing high density feed lots.

Hexagonal pixel imaging

Published: 2009, February, 3

A system containing an image sensor array whereby pixels are located in the centers or at the vertices of regular hexagonal tiles or other irregular tiled patterns instead of the rectangular tiles used in the current state of the art imaging systems. Such a system might be implemented with hexagonal arrays of sensors for each pixel where each hexagon comprises 3 triangles, each representing a separate RGB or YUV color component. Non-rectangular pixel tiling could be implemented with arrays of non-rectangular image sensor sites or with rectangular image sensor sites and a physical screen with a corresponding array of non-rectangular perforations in the optical path.

A hexagonal or irregularly tiled image sensor array could naturally be coupled with a method of digitizing and storing hexagonal or other non-rectangular pixels. Alternatively, for storing pixels in formats that only supports square or rectangular pixels a method of interpolating hexagonally or irregularly aligned pixel locations to a rectangular pixel array would be employed.

Hexagonal tiles, like triangular and rectangular but no other shape of tiles, pack fully but unlike rectangular tiles hexagonal tiles each more closely approximate a circle and therefore can create a reproduced image that looks more realistic to the viewer and has higher visual fidelity per pixel captured than is possible with rectangular pixels. This benefit will be particularly noteable in display media made of arrays of circles such as arrays of LCDs or arrays of ink dots printed on paper.

Remote control pointing device

Published: 2009, January, 1

A device that can be held in the hand like a television remote control or the remote controllers sold with many home theater devices. The device is meant to be used from a comfortably seated position such as leaning back on a couch, sofa, or arm chair. The device is meant to be pointed at a display screen survace such as a television or monitor using any display technology such as liquid crystal display (LCD), forward projection or rear projection, plasma, or cathode ray tube (CRT).

The device might be capable of emiting a visible laser beam to allow the user to point to a specific location on the display. The device receives energy radiated from the display, such as visible light, infra red light, or inaudible sound or sonic waves. Using the signals in the energy received from the direction of the display the device can determine where within the display it is pointed. Alternatively, the device might mass the received signal to an associated device that performs the calculations to determine where the pointing device is pointed.

The device can communicate the location within the display at which it is pointed to another device. The pointing device might also include one or more button, trigger, or other clicking mechanism by which the user can indicate a choice of item, region, or a object drawn on the display.

This remote control pointing device would be useful for web browsing or selecting items from menus presented on television and monitor displays.

One possible method for the pointing device and the device controlling the display to determine the pointed location would be to, upon a click event, flash a unique, non-repetative pattern on the display from which the signal received by the photo detectors could be used to calculate the actual location on the display. This would most likely be used in conjunction with a design that uses a laser pointer to indicate the pointed location to the user.

The color or spectrum of light received could be used to determine the pointed location. For example, in a rudimentary implementation a menu could be displayed showing different menu buttons, each displayed with or without red, green, and blue light color components. Three photo detectors in the pointing device could be used, each sensitive to one of the color components. A measure of the relative power received of each color component could be used to determine which menu item was selected.