Green Patent Blog®

Kruse Technology Partnership (”Kruse”) is an Anaheim, California partnership that owns several U.S. patents relating to its higher efficiency and cleaner burning diesel engines.

In previous posts (here, here and here) I discussed infringement suits in which Kruse accused DMAX, Ltd., Isuzu and General Motors of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 5,265,562 (”‘562 patent”), 6,058,904 (”‘904 patent”) and 6,405,704 (”‘704 patent”) relating to higher efficiency and lower emission diesel engines.

Last month Kruse filed a fourth patent action against several defendants, including Daimler, Mercedes-Benz USA, Volkswagen, Ford and Chrysler.  The complaint (kruse-daimler_complaint.pdf) alleges that the defendants are infringing the Kruse patents by making and selling engines and vehicles equipped with engines that practice the patented methods.

The asserted patents are entitled “Internal combustion engine with limited temperature cycle” and are directed to Kruse’s “Limited Temperature Cycle” technology, which limits peak combustion temperatures in direct injection gas and diesel engines. 

The Limited Temperature Cycle injects fuel in multiple increments both before and after ignition.  According to Kruse’s web site, such injection of partial quantities of fuel reduces the combustion temperature, boosts thermal efficiency and reduces certain chemical emissions.

The asserted patents claim this process and describe an engine incorporating the invention.  The engine (10) comprises a block (12), a cylinder head (14) and a cylinder (16) having a piston (18). 

Fuel is supplied to the engine (10) by a fuel injection system (36).  The engine (10) also includes an air induction system (26) having an air intake valve (28) in the cylinder head (14).

One key feature of the process is the maintenance of a proper fuel/air mix in the engine to reduce the temperature and the work of compression.  According to the ‘904 patent, the fuel injection system (36) precisely regulates this fuel/air mixture for combustion and exhaust emission control.

The complaint requests that the court issue permanent injunctions against the defendants and award Kruse compensatory damages for the alleged infringement.

I’ve written before about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program, which promotes investment in energy efficient products by providing information that consumers and investors can use to research and compare green product or project choices.

The EPA works with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and manufacturers to award the ENERGY STAR certification to products that meet particular energy savings standards.  The EPA owns U.S. Certification Mark Registration No. 2,817,628 (energy-star-reg.JPG) for its ENERGY STAR design (pictured above).

Certification marks differ from ordinary trademarks in that they certify that goods or services meet certain quality or manufacturing standards instead of indicating the commercial source of a product.  Certification marks are owned by the organizations that set the standards and used by companies that meet the standards and earn the certifications.

The certifying organizations are responsible for formulating, administering and policing their certification standards.  Failing to do so can undermine the credibility and damage the reputation of the organization and its certification.

The EPA and DOE recently announced that they would expand testing and enforcement to strengthen the Energy Star program.  This comes as the program’s star has dimmed after publication of a study performed by Congressional auditors at the Government Accountability Office to test the program’s certification process (see NY Times article here).

The GAO auditors created fictitious companies and sought Energy Star status for some conventional and unconventional devices, submitting phony data purporting to show the products were energy efficient.  Among the study’s highlights (or lowlights, as it were):

most of the products, including a “gasoline-powered alarm clock” and an ”air purifier” consisting of a feather duster pasted on top of a space heater, were approved without challenge

some approvals were issued by an automated system without human review

once a company got approval for one product and became an Energy Star partner, the company could download the logo and paste it on products that had not been approved

As part of the overhaul, DOE recently began testing the six most commonly used appliances - freezers, refrigerator-freezers, clothes washers, dishwashers, water heaters and room air conditioners - and, with the EPA, is developing a system to test all products that earn the Energy Star label. 

In addition, DOE and EPA will require manufactureres to participate in an ongoing verification testing program to ensure continued compliance and are stepping up enforcement by taking action against manufacturers whose products do not comply with the requisite standards.

Like all certification marks and programs, the Energy Star brand is only as good as its administration and policing so let’s hope it regains its shine.

Koninklijke Philips Electronics and Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions (collectively “Philips”) sued Pixelrange and UK lighting company James Thomas Engineering last month, accusing the defendants of infringing six patents relating to LED systems. 

The complaint (philips_dmass_complaint.pdf), filed in Massachusetts district court, lists U.S. Patent Nos. 6,250,774 (’250,774 Patent), 6,016,038 (’038 Patent), 6,150,774 (’150,774 Patent), 6,806,659 (’659 Patent), 6,788,011 (’011 Patent) and 6,975,079 (’079 Patent) and alleges that the PixelLine Micro W product (shown above) infringes the asserted patents.

The ‘250,774 patent is entitled ”Luminaire” and is directed to an LED package for street lighting that uses the generated light more efficiently. 

According to the patent, a major disadvantage of some existing luminaires is that the light doesn’t concentrate well into a beam and therefore a substantial percentage of the light projects outside the area or object to be illuminated.

The patented technology solves this problem and reduces energy use by focusing the individual beams of multiple LED lighting units such that each narrow beam only hits a portion of the area or object. 

The claimed luminaire (1) (shown above) has a housing (10), a light emission window (11) and a set of lighting units (20), each having at least one LED chip (30) and an optical system (40), with the lighting units illuminating respective portions of an object.

The ‘038, ‘150,774, ‘659 and ‘011 Patents comprise a chain of related patents entitled “Multicolored LED lighting method and apparatus” and are directed to computer controlled multicolored LED networks. 

According to these patents, the inventions overcome some of the problems associated with integrating multiple LEDs of different colors, intensity levels and power ratings.

These patents describe a pulse width modulated current control where each lighting unit is uniquely addressable via a controller and capable of receiving illumination color information on a computer lighting network.  

Multiple integrated circuits at respective nodes are operatively connected to a light module (100) with LED sets (120, 140, 160), which each contain a series or parallel array of LEDs of various colors.

The ‘079 Patent, entitled “Systems and mehtods for controlling illumination sources,” relates to methods of providing control signals for LED lighting systems to control light output.  The methods can take into account the response of a viewer to different light output levels and convert data inputs to output control signals that adjust the light output levels accordingly.

I read an interesting article in The Economist’s most recent Technology Quarterly about new ways to recycle waste heat from power plants and other types of machinery such as computers. 

In the power generation context this typically is done using a heat recovery unit to capture heat from a combustion unit’s exhaust stream.

Another way to way to recycle waste heat is to capture infrared radiation emitted by hot objects using photovoltaic cells. 

The difficulty with this approach is that only photons that travel at a near perfect right angle to the surface of the hot material can escape and be picked up by PV cells.  Photons traveling at any other angle are reflected back inside the material.

One of the companies profiled in the Economist article is Boston, Massachusetts startup MTPV Corporation (MTPV), which takes its name from an acronym for a technology called micron-gap thermal photovoltaics. 

MTPV discovered that by placing PV cells just a few hundred nanometers from a hot surface of silicon carbide alloy - so the gap is smaller than the wavelength of the infrared radiation - the photons are not reflected inward but instead continue to travel into the PV cells.

According to MTPV’s web site, U.S. Patent No. 6,084,173 (’173 Patent), entitled “Method and apparatus for the generation of charged carriers in semiconductor devices,” is its “fundamental” patent on the micron-gap technology. 

The ‘173 Patent is directed to methods of enhancing electrical current generation in a conductive surface by adjusting the gap between a hot surface and the conductive surface to the order of microns or submicrons.

The MTPV web site describes U.S. Patent No. 6,232,546 (’546 Patent) as a version 1 “implementation” patent.  The ‘546 Patent is entitled “Microcavity apparatus and systems for maintaining a microcavity over a macroscale area” and is directed to a microscale generator (10) having two elements (14, 16) within a vacuum (12).  

The first element (14) acts as a thermal source for transferring energy and a second facing element (16) receives the energy transferred.

Moveable panels (18) are disposed on one of the elements.  The panels (18) are thermally coupled to element (14) and spaced from facing element (16) a predetermined, sub-micron distance to efficiently couple the energy between the elements so it can be converted to electricity.

To maintain and control the requisite sub-micron distance between the elements, each individual panel includes spring-like actuating flexures (20).  These flexures (20) urge each panel (18) towards facing element (16) to maintain the predetermined sub-micron spacing between the elements.

Each panel (18) has its own flexures (20) so the panels act independently of each other to conform to and compensate for surface variations in element (16).

In addition to the ‘173 and ‘546 Patents, MTPV owns U.S. Patent Applications Pub. Nos. 2008/0060694, 2009/0188549 and 2009/0277488.  According to the company’s web site MTPV continues to innovate and grow its patent portfolio:

The intellectual property continues to extend with six pending patent applications and over fifty disclosures in addition to ongoing research and development efforts.

A company called Commonwealth Research Group LLC (Commonwealth) filed a patent infringement suit last month against a number of technology companies, accusing them of infringing a patent relating to an energy saving system for electronic devices.

The complaint (commonwealth_complaint.pdf), filed in federal court in Delaware, asserts U.S. Patent No. 6,026,493 (’493 Patent) against Samsung, Toshiba, NXP Semiconductors and Renesas Technology.

The ‘493 Patent is directed to electronic circuitry that conserves energy by turning off or reducing power to selected chip components.  A disclosed embodiment involving powering a tape recorder is shown below.  The embodiment comprises a circuit having two relays (12, 18).

In its normal position, the second relay (18) supplies continuous power to the power bus.  The first relay (12) is designed to lock open as long as power is maintained on the power bus.   

Tape sensor prongs (27) momentarily connect on a passing cassette tape (26) to energize the second relay (18).  When the second relay (18) is energized, the power bus loses power, and the first relay (12) returns to the normal position with no power supplied to the tape recorder (14).

It is unclear from the complaint who or what Commonwealth is.  The complaint does not say anything about the company except that it is a Virginia corporation that owns all rights to the ‘493 Patent. 

The only other information I could find on the internet was through a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office assignments database, which lists a Washington, DC address for Commonwealth. 

Commonwealth has requested a preliminary and permanent injunction, which would require the company to explain how it’s been harmed by the alleged infringement.  More details are likely to come out at that time.