My solution tp the patent problem

I'd prefer that we simply did away with patents. Does McDonald's need a patent to sell hamburgers? Does Toyota need to patent the idea of a hybrid to sell the Prius? Of course not! In a free market, the guy who best meets the customer's needs wins! A patent cannot do that; if anything, patents and the monopoly they enforce usually result in a customer being forced to pay way too much for something, or to not have any choices at all in a market...neither of which would happen in a truly free market.

But there is so much investment in this lunatic system that I'd never get my way. So as a compromise, this is what I propose:

1. First of all, there would be separate utility patent "sublclasses" for drugs/therapeutics, and for traditional utility patents. The reason for this is that drugs truly deserve special consideration as they are much harder/more expensive to develop.
2. Regular utility patents would work as follows: you get 10 years on the patent, not the ridiculous 20 they allow now. For the first 5 years, you and you alone can decide what to do with it; you can sit on it, or license it, or develop/manufacture/sell with it. If you haven't done anything within 5 years, it's revoked forever. On the DAY 5 years rolls around, you are now compelled to license it to anyone who makes a request, and you must license it for no more than 7% of revenues (or equivalent).
3. For drugs, the system is as follows: you get 4 years from the date of filing to request a phase I FDA trial, you get 5 years to complete trails, and the DAY you get FDA approval, you get 8 years to sell/license/do whatever. If you miss any of the milestones, your patent is gone. But, the time limits given are completely reasonable for anyone diligently trying to pursue a real drug. It also forces companies to do a little more front end work, so we don't end up with Vioxx type fiascos where the drug Co.s only realize their mistake late in the game and then scurry to hide it. It's better to be forced to figure out troubles early on that to waste money on human trials and then cover your ass when it all goes wrong.

I'm sure all the patent attorneys, corporatists, and other vermin would find these solutions absolutely shocking. They'd never be able to pay for their misdeeds if innovators had only 7 or 8 years to play the monopoly game. Prices would rise, they'd say. Well, of course they'd rise, that's what happens regardless when you're allowed a damned monopoly! But since the monopolistic period would be so short, monopolists would have an incentive to not overdo it with the price hikes because consumers would rapidly ditch them once and for all as soon as the artifical scarcity imposed by the monopoly is busted.

If instead, we truly found a way for people to exchange their innovations in a free marketplace, innovation, science, and technology would flourish like never before. And in that scenario, EVERYONE wins, not just hte monopolist. I invite your ideas here too...though I'm not interested in reading defenses of the current system (the literature is saturated with the self-serving apologists of the current system).

Anger management

Well, this is a letter of catharsis. It won't do any good. But maybe some of you dear readers may get some benefit, a chuckle perhaps, from hearing about my story and my motivation.

I am trying to start up a business that recycles printed circuit boards from electronic waste (e-waste). Now, there are some legitimate e-cyclers out there (most in the US aren't, sadly), but even these legitimate e-cyclers are not really extracting the full recyclable value from the boards.

You see, most PC boards, cables, CRT's, etc. are simply shredded, and the metals then recycled via various methods of separation and extraction. While this ensures that some value is extracted from this waste stream, it really doesn't garner all that much. Furthermore, from an energy efficiency standpoint, recycling just the metal content alone is really not all that great. That is, there is a lot of embodied energy spent in transforming metal and plastic into useful components; when you recycle only the raw materials, all of that embodied energy is "lost".

What I want to do is recycle the modules and components found in e-waste. Right now, this is only done on a very limited scale, and is done by hand. I intend to find a way to automate it.

The trouble I'm running into is the insane patent system in this country. Apparently, given enough money and lawyers, one can get a patent in pretty much anything, no matter how trivial and obvious.

Consider the following Us Patent (#6705509):

http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=06705509&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D6705509.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F6705509%2526RS%3DPN%2F6705509&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page

These geniuses patented the very basic idea that you should sort pc boards by solder type, and then melt the solder off to recycle the solder. No, I'm not kidding. Now, maybe to some nontechnical folks that sounds like a reasonable basis for a patent. To anyone "in the art" however, it's totally, stupidly and ridiculously obvious. It's like patenting the idea to put cardboard in the cardboard bin and aluminum cans in the aluminum can bin. Solder recyclers already request that their customers do this separation, and it's standard practice not to mix solder types together whenever possible. You don't believe me? Read on:

http://www.pkaymetal.com/Reclamation.htm

Skip down to the "Processing and Testing" paragraph:

"When P. Kay Metal receives your material at its Los Angeles facility, it is weighed and analyzed via an ICP (Incductively [sic] Coupled Plasma) spectrometer. The resulting analysis details the metal compostion of the returned material. Alloys are segregated by compostion and form (dross or metal), assigned lot numbers and recycled."


Now my gripe is that these are dozens if not hundreds of patents (many of which are patents on pretty obvious/stupid stuff) that could apply to some, any, or all of the various aspects of my proposed operation. While I would not be brazenly copying their idea/patent, I would be using aspects of their designs that are sort of "givens", such as using a heat lamp to heat up solder, etc. That's the purpose of innovation: take what's out there already, and improve on it. It's nearly impossible to come up with a method that utilizes no "prior art" whatsoever; it's not like the laws of physics will bend to suit some legal system whims. And the trouble is, even if your new method is strikingly more efficient by incorporating truly innovative ideas, it would cost you a boatload of money to demonstrate something that's really just common sense, to either a judge or jury. I really need not be truly infringing on a patent for someone to be able to bog my business down (and likely into bankruptcy) with a patent fight blackmail.

Even more frustrating for me is that in certain cases, there really may be no way to improve on something. In that case, it's best just to license a technology, or buy someone's machine...a perfectly reasonable thing to do, you'd think. But no, many of the holders of IP, with their government-enforced monopoly, decide that they don't want to license to anyone without millions of dollars up front...an impossibility for any small business. What these patent trolls are doing is forcing the economy to become one where only bloated corporations can operate, where legal wrangling and arcane patent fights are just a "cost of doing business"...a cost of doing business, one might add, that is most certainly passed on to consumers!

I don't have the money to get a rock-solid legal opinion granting me a defense of non-infringement on dozens of patents. Heck, even a large corporation would be hard pressed to do so. So I'm left wondering what in the hell to do about it.

All I have to say is that I just hate the patent system. It is doing more to shut down innovation in both the private and public sector than any other factor. We, as a society, cannot afford to bear the costs of such an unreasonable system. There has to be a way to cooperate and allow people like me to be able to innovate and move the economy forward. I'm willing to pay someone if I indeed need their ideas and expertise to succeed. I'm not here to rip anyone off, steal ideas, or cheat my way to success. But I can't afford to hire a legion of lawyers just to be able to start a business, and nobody should have to anyway. WE NEED TRULY FREE MARKETS, AND PATENTS ARE A PARTICULARLY PERNICIOUS FORM OF MONOPOLISM!

I just hope, one day, that I can indeed operate sucessfully in my intended bsuiness, with some of the ideas I've shared here. If I cannot, then I hope someone else out there can! I just cannot stand the idea that we are going to continue to dump our wealth needlessly into landfills, ruining our economy, and poisoning our planet.

Belt sander through hole "desolderer"

So the idea for this is quite simple: you just sand away the underside and the parts are freed.

I've included two figures for some clarity. You allow the belt sander to pull the part along by friction, and you can control the rate of travel by adjusting friction, or by having some sort of indexing mechanism. A guide rail and guided carrier is used to control depth of "cut".

Figure 1: the basic idea

Figure 2: close up of side clamp. This would likely be made of brass or vespel. The guide into which it fitrs is likely high carbon steel, cast iron, or a tool steel (O-1).

Method to remove through hole components from board

This idea is a modification of a wave soldering system to desolder stuff and knock it loose.

A PC board with through-hole parts to be removed is placed in a carrier assembly. This carrier assembly consists of side clamps, and an overhead stiffener. The overhead stiffener is attached to the side clamps by studs/threaded rods that pass through ears on the sides of the clamps and stiffener. The overhead stiffener also has threaded holes to provision use of support dowels or studs that touch the pcb board once the clamps and stiffener are fastened together. See Figures 1 and 2:
Figure 1: The side clamps

Figure 2: the carrier assembly fully assembled with board attached

The stiffener also has ears to allow attachment to a robotic arm that will manipulate the carrier assembly inside a wave soldering machine.


The whole assembly of stiffener/board/clamps is loaded into the desoldering machine. Here, the carrier is reciprocated across the surface a wave solder pool/pot several times so as to melt the solder on the underside and melt the solder in all the layers/topside via conduction. Once the solder has had sufficient time to melt (1-2 seconds), it is rapidly lifted up or rotated up, and is translated sideways, and then slammed into a platen. This impact impacts sufficient force and impulse to displace the components and free (most or all of them) from the board. See figure 3:
Figure 3: the robotic arm assembly which operates inside wave desoldering machine/cell

The atmosphere inside this "flapjack" desoldering machine is controlled to prevent excessive oxidation. Thus, it is purged with Ar or N2 to reduce oxygen content below about 10 ppm (standard for most wave soldering machines). The gas temperature is also controlled to avoid thermal shock of components, thus it is held at nominally 80C.

The freed parts are then conveyed or wipered away to one of several holding cells; the holding cell has an airlock to prevent excessive loss of purge gas. The holding cell also allows parts to cool down to 30 C at a moderate pace (1 C/sec or less).

The spent board is then taken out through the entry/exit port, which also has an airlock.

"Air hockey" sorting table

The idea behind this is simple: only objects with a low mass/surface area ratio will be suspended, the rest will simply sit still. A table with thousands of tiny holes on say .1" spacing will act to levitate IC's. The table is inclined, so these IC's "float" their way to the end for collection. The other items will sit still once loaded onto the table (from a conveyor), and can be pulled off periodically by a wiper that reciprocates every 5-10 seconds to prevent excessive build up.

Notice further that very small objects (smaller than hole center spacing) will likely also not move. Thus, one could then do an immediate separation on stationary objects based on size quite easily.

An extension of this idea is to have variable spacing of holes to allow sorting by surface area. Thus, you will get a gradient of parts according to surface area by having a small inter-hole spacing at the beginning, and progressively large hole spacing going forward.

The best way to load such a table is likely with a gentle vibratory feed platen that is separated from the table itself by a small gap, spanned by a plastic apron/bridge.

More details on pcb desoldering centrifuge

So I did some more thinking about the pcb centrifuge. I've included some figures this time. The centrifuge rotor is a cup structure, likely made of high grade ductile (nodular) iron. There are 10-20 pcb compartments around the rotor. In each compartment, there is a clamp to hold the board in place, and the wall has blind stud/dowel holes for placement of "keeper" dowels or studs.On the wall there is stainless, brass, or copper gauze to act as both a part buffer and a sponge for dross/solder.

You put the board in, and then backfill the compartment with a low melting paraffin wax or a silicone oil. The wax or oil does 4 things:

1. Prevents most solder oxidation.
2. Acts as a viscous medium to slow part separation form board
3. Prevents rapid temperature cycling of parts thereby minimizing risk of thermal shock.
4. Acts as a heat transfer medium
   

See the figures:

And:

In the embodiment I'm thinking of, each compartment has an electrically resistive heater, either a potted into place heater or an element heater spot welded or brazed to the compartment walls.. Alternatively, you could circulate a heat transfer liquid through a "water jacket" machined/cast into the compartment housing.

Finger deflector

This little gadget does one thing and one thing only, it sorts parts falling off a conveyor based on weight. Heavy parts fall through to the secondary catch, lightweight parts will slide down the finger to the primary catch.

See the figure. The finger itself is made of HDPE, Teflon, or Nylon. It can have a metallic (or plastic) backer spring to increase stiffness as necessary.

As one can see at the bottom of the figure, there is an array of these fingers that span the end of a conveyor line. The fingers look a bit like these musical combs used in music boxes.

Method to rotate planar SMT ics into vertical

So this idea is for a method/device that will take planar SMT ICs on a conveyor, flip them to the vertical, and transport them up off the conveyor belt (to go onto another conveyor or down into a bin).

Figure 1 shows the "stiletto finger" that flips the IC up. There would be an array of these stilettos across the width of the conveyor. The bottom of the stiletto is perhaps 0.004" to 0.010" nominally above the face of the conveyor (so that it does not rub). In figure 2 you can see that there is a traction wheel at the end of the stiletto that kicks the IC up off the conveyor. One can then use external guides, conveyors, or other mechanisms to direct the IC elsewhere.

Figure 1: the top view is plan, the bottom a side view. I'm trying to show that the bottom part of the stiletto is radiused. I'm not a good artist, sorry.

Figure 2: here you see the soft (foam rubber or foam urethane) wheel kicker. The kicker wheels will likely all be chain driven as they will be part of an array across the width of the conveyor.

Anti-"White Ford Bronco" device

Look out all you crazy police chase loonies, I've got the perfect remedy to stop you.

The idea is this: a police cruiser is fitted with a fixed mount launching tube (about 8" long) to fire what is basically a magnetic grapple and parachute. The firing "charge" can be from an on-board 300 psi compressor and dump tank, a CO2 cylinder, or even a small Cordite gas generator. A cruiser gets close, fires the "bag" at the vehicle, it sticks thanks to some tenacious NdFeB magnets, and the parachute pops. Depending on the size of the chute, you'll be lucky to surpass 45 MPH after deployment. Now, instead of being able to kill dozens of people in your quest for glory, you're definitely caught and going to jail. So anticlimactic.

There are some important details needed here: the bag has the chute at one end, the magnets at the other. The magnets are little cubes of NdFeB and have rubber coating to prevent chipping. Each magnet is separated from the others in a series of mini-compartments like a cow's stomach. The bag itself is made of Cordura or Spectra. Around the periphery of the bag there are spring loaded "petals" with even more magnets in them. They deploy right after the bag first hits the vehicle. The chute then deploys perhaps 1-2 seconds after the petals are down.

The release of the parachute requires a mechanical setback and setforward, and electromag proximity sensor to allow release of the petals and 'chute deployment spring (thus you have a little ruggedized battery powered microcontroller unit in the mid section).

The bags should be reuseable, but even if not, they are likely only perhaps 1-2k replacement cost...far less expensive than new cars or trips to the hospital.

Demining ideas

So something that I want to do someday is to create demining machines. If any of you out there want to try my ideas, feel free.

1) A tower crane with a 1000 gallon forest fire helicopter-borne water dump bucket (like they use with the Chinooks). Yep, that simple. Fill 'er up, swing it out, and dump. Rinse and repeat. It should set off most antipersonnel mines. If you repeat the process several times per patch you should be able to make it relatively easy to do a manual survey for 100% clearance.

2) A waterjet on tracks. Basically, you have a modified Bobcat on tracks that pulls a water tender. You run a high pressure water pump off a PTO or hydraulic motor-water pump accessory to power a series of nozzles on a flexible fiberglass or Kevlar composite pole. You'd likely need to pulse the jets so that the jerk (dF/dt) sets off the mines; you can do this with high flow valves and an accumulator upstream. The nozzles would be angled about 45 deg. to the vertical and held maybe 10 inches off the ground. The nozzles themselves would be protected from frag by copper collars. The driver/operator cab of course would be armored and have portal windows, likely made from AlON (aluminum oxynitride).