Monitoring device
US Patent 10,456,522
October 29, 2019
A monitoring device provided for monitoring the delivery of fluids through a drip chamber. The device includes an electromagnetic radiation (EMR) source and an EMR detector. The device includes a tubing set mount for receiving a flange or other portion of a tubing set, such that fluid falling through the drip chamber of the tubing set is detected by the detector.
Systems and methods with a swellable material disposed over a transducer of an ultrasound imaging system
US Patent 10,456,105
October 29, 2019
A catheter assembly for an ultrasound system includes an elongated catheter for insertion into the cardiovascular system of a patient. The catheter includes a sheath that defines a lumen extending along the sheath. The catheter assembly also includes an imaging core for inserting into the lumen of the catheter. The imaging core includes an elongated, rotatable driveshaft and an imaging device coupled to the distal end of the driveshaft with rotation of the driveshaft causing a corresponding rotation of the imaging device. The imaging device includes at least one transducer for transforming applied electrical signals to acoustic signals and also for transforming received echo signals to electrical signals. The imaging core further includes a swellable material disposed on at least the at least one transducer and configured and arranged to rotate with rotation of the driveshaft and to swell upon exposure to a fluid.
USPTO Responds to Public in a Subject Matter Eligibility Update
October 28, 2019
| Intellectual Property News, Legal News
On October 18, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office provided an update to their prior guidelines released on January 7, 2019 in response to public comments. (84 FR 50, Jan. 7, 2019, “Guidance.”) The Guidance revises USPTO procedures for determining whether or not a patent claim or patent application claim is directed to one of the judicially created exceptions to 35 U.S.C. § 101: laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.
In the October update (“Update”), the USPTO clarifies how an examiner should determine whether a claim “recites” a judicial exception in Step 2A (Prong One). Claims that either state (set forth) a judicial exception or describe a concept that falls under a judicial exception without necessarily explicitly naming it are determined to “recite” a judicial exception. Prong Two of Step 2A analyzes whether the recited judicial exception has been integrated into a practical application. A claim is “directed to” a judicial exception when it satisfies both Prong One and Prong Two of Step 2A of a patent subject matter eligibility assessment. Thus, if a claim is determined to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, the claim is not directed to the judicial exception.
The October Update explains that, in performing Prong Two of Step 2A to determine whether the recited judicial exception has been integrated into a practical application, the Examiner should take into consideration all of the claim limitations as a whole and how those limitations interact and impact each other. For example, the Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (“MPEP”) explains that examiners should evaluate any improvement in the functioning of a computer/other technology/technical field by determining whether the specification provides sufficient details regarding such improvement and, if so, whether the claim reflects the disclosed improvement. The Update notes that this determination, as described by the MPEP and the Guidance, is not an explicit test sanctioned by the courts for performing a Prong Two analysis. Also, as part of this analysis, the examiner should consider other factors that may indicate integration into a practical application such as implementing the judicial exception with a particular machine or manufacture, effecting a transformation or reduction of an article, and applying the judicial exception in some other meaningful way. Whether a claim limitation is, for example, an extra-solution activity is considered without reference to whether such extra-solution activity is well-known, conventional, or routine.
The Update also includes a set of further examples and characterizations of court decisions to aid in examiner training.
Extending policy rulesets with scripting
US Patent 10,454,768
October 22, 2019
Embodiments are directed towards using policy rules that may be extended by scripting operative on a traffic management device. Each policy rule may have a condition and a corresponding action. If the condition is a script, a script engine separate from the policy engine may be employed to execute the script to determine if the condition is met. Otherwise, the policy engine may determine if the condition is met based on declarative expressions that comprise the condition. If the condition is met the action corresponding to the policy rule may be executed. Scripts may be used to compute the values of operands that may be used in one or more of the expression that comprise a condition for a policy rule. Also, the action corresponding to a policy rule may be implemented using a script that is executed by a script engine.
Docking sleeve with electrical adapter
US Patent 10,454,515
October 22, 2019
A protective arrangement for an electronic device includes a flexible cover having a panel and a skirt that form an interior cavity to receive an electronic device; and an adapter fixedly positioned in the flexible cover and having a male plug with connectors extending into the interior cavity of the flexible cover for mating with a female socket of the device and a contactor with contacts adjacent outwardly from the flexible cover and electrically coupled to one or more of the connectors of the plug. A docking cradle or external adapter can receive the electronic device and cover.
Web browser remoting using network vector rendering
US Patent 10,452,868
October 22, 2019
Methods, systems, and techniques for application isolation by remote-enabling applications are provided. Example embodiments provide an Adaptive Rendering Application Isolation System ("ARAIS"), which transparently and dynamically enables applications to run in an isolated execution environment yet be rendered locally in a manner that minimizes the amount of data to be transferred and the latency caused by expensive computation and/or by overburdening available bandwidth by remoting rendering using draw commands over rendering using pixel pushing or other techniques. In one embodiment, the ARAIS includes an orchestrator server which comprises remoting level determination logic and rules engine, pre-computed graphics libraries, connection support logic, data repositories for objects such as a render cache, whitelists, blacklists, client privileges, and application information, and one or more secure containers running remote application instances. These components cooperate to deliver isolation-ready technology to client applications.
Fast scanning with dynamic voxel probing
US Patent 10,451,737
October 22, 2019
A LIDAR system includes a scanner; a receiver; and one or more processor devices to perform actions, including: scanning a continuous light beam over the field of view in a first scan pass; detecting photons of the continuous light beam that are reflected from one or more objects; determining a coarse range to the one or more objects based on times of departure of the photons of the continuous light beam and times of arrival of the photons at the receiver; scanning light pulses over the field of view in a second scan pass; detecting photons from the light pulses that are reflected from the one or more objects; and determining a refined range to the one or more objects based on times of departure of the photons of the light pulses and times of arrival of the photons at the receiver.
Orthogonal turbine with pressure-differential-controlled jets
US Patent United States Patent
October 22, 2019
An orthogonal power unit includes blade sections with pressure sensitive elements on either side of a foil contour, such as at the widest point. Vents are positioned rearward of the pressure sensitive elements. A controller, such as a linkage or electronic controller, senses a pressure differential between the pressure sensitive elements. When the pressure differential exceeds a threshold, a valve coupled to the vent on the low-pressure side is opened to release pressurized fluid from that vent. The fluid may be combustible gas and an ignitor may be incorporated into the turbine blade to ignite the gas. A channel may pass through the blade sections and a back-pressure valve in each valve section couples the channel to a cavity from which fluid is released through the vents.
Fishing rod holder with a top mount receptacle for receiving a device mount
US Patent 10,448,626
October 22, 2019
A fishing rod holder includes a mounting arrangement configured to either be received by a mounting apparatus or to mount to a surface. A rod retainer is coupled to the mounting arrangement. The rod retainer includes at least one retaining wall having an outer surface and defining an inner cavity configured to receive and hold a portion of a fishing rod. A top mount receptacle is configured to receive a device mount. The top mount receptacle includes a base disposed on the outer surface of the rod retainer. The base includes a mounting surface configured for receiving a portion of the device mount.
Engine for modeling and executing custom business processes
US Patent 10,445,680
October 15, 2019
Embodiments are directed towards managing online computer services to create custom business processes. A visualization model representing a business process may be provided. If the visualization model a modeling engine may produce a flow model from the visualization model. A flow model may be provided based on the visualization model, such that the flow model includes flow nodes and edges associating the flow nodes. A control model that is overlaid on the flow model may be provided, such that the control model may be arranged to share the flow nodes and the edges of the flow model. A data model that is overlaid on the flow model may be provided. The data model may be arranged to include one or more data model edges. The flow model may be provided to an executive engine that executes the flow model using one or more execution engines.
