Patents Represented by Attorney, Agent or Law Firm Akerman Senterfitt
  • Patent number: 8349637
    Abstract: In a method for the production of a solar cell, a flat aluminium layer is applied to the back of a solar cell substrate. The aluminium is alloyed into the silicon substrate by the effect of the temperature and forms an aluminium BSF. The remaining aluminium that has not been alloyed into the silicon is subsequently removed. The aluminium BSF is transparent to light.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Gebr. Schmid GmbH & Co.
    Inventors: Christian Schmid, Dirk Habermann
  • Patent number: 8348640
    Abstract: A closure bottom plate 1 for electric pump 100, in particular for a boiler circulation centrifugal pump, is made of a cup-shaped motor cover 2 and a connector-holder cover 3. The bottom plate 1 has an internal aeration path 4, intended to allow the circulation—by natural convection—of air which is heated during the operation of the electric pump 100 preventing the formation of condensate inside the bottom plate 1. The internal aeration path 4 is extended between at least one inlet opening 22 arranged on the motor cover 2 and an outlet opening 36, successively crossing the internal volume of the motor cover 2, the coupling opening 21, and a labyrinth 32 defined by the connector-holder cover 3.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 1, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2013
    Assignee: Askoll Holding S.r.l.
    Inventor: Elio Marioni
  • Patent number: 8342809
    Abstract: A device for a runner (1) for a fluid machine comprising a runner hub (2) and a number of blades (4) distributed around the centre axis (8) of the runner (1), each blade (4) being detachably connected to the runner (1).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 17, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Dynavec AS
    Inventors: Reza Hezari, Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug
  • Patent number: 8346960
    Abstract: Certain exemplary embodiments comprise a method comprising: within a backbone network: for backbone network traffic addressed to a particular target and comprising attack traffic and non-attack traffic, the attack traffic simultaneously carried by the backbone network with the non-attack traffic: redirecting at least a portion of the attack traffic to a scrubbing complex; and allowing at least a portion of the non-attack traffic to continue to the particular target without redirection to the scrubbing complex.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
    Inventors: Oliver Spatscheck, Jacobus E. Van der Merwe
  • Patent number: 8337134
    Abstract: A device for stacking a plurality of silicon wafers has an upright machine carrier for holding a plurality of silicon wafers, the silicon wafers being provided in a horizontal position in the machine carrier. The device has three identical loading cassettes for introducing several silicon wafers therein. The machine carrier has holding devices for the loading cassettes. The loading cassettes have a lower support surface for putting silicon wafers on in stack-like fashion, and a rear side wall running substantially perpendicular thereto. The loading cassette is designed in such a way that the side opposite the rear side wall, and the top side are freely accessible.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2012
    Assignee: Schmid Technology Systems GmbH
    Inventors: Reiner Greber, Marijan Strugar, Thomas Schultze
  • Patent number: 8336762
    Abstract: At least one datum is received from a point of sale terminal indicating an event that has occurred with respect to the terminal. A usage statistic is calculated for a specified period of time based on at least (1) a predetermined value relating to the event, and (2) at least one of (a) a number of transactions processed by the terminal in the specified period and (b) an amount of time that the terminal was in a sleep mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 25, 2012
    Assignee: Greenwise Bankcard LLC
    Inventors: Robert B. DiMattina, Terri L. Melle-Johnson
  • Patent number: 8327610
    Abstract: The present embodiments are directed to a medicinal extractor that may open and empty pharmaceutical capsules of variable sizes. The medicinal extractor may have a cover that swings open to expose an interior chamber for a powder-filled medication capsule to be dropped into, and the cover may then be closed. The medicinal extractor may have squeezable side depressors on each side for manually squeezing or holding the capsule in place horizontally. Once closed, the cover may be pushed down to compress two components of the medicinal extractor that are moveable with respect to each other. As the moveable components compress, the cover may press the capsule downward onto a hollow piercing element. The hollow piercing element may puncture the capsule to allow medication within the capsule to fall through the hollow piercing element and into a collection chamber or onto a surface below the medicinal extractor for collection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2012
    Assignee: JCDS Holdings, LLC
    Inventor: Jay Richard Ray, II
  • Patent number: 8328555
    Abstract: An implant for anchoring a tightly fitting prosthesis includes an externally threaded implant body configured to be screwed into bone using an insertion tool, the body having a first end and a second apex end, said first end being provided with an internal open ended axial bore, the implant being tapered such that the apex end is smaller in diameter than the first end where the taper is not greater than 2°. The implant is also provided with an incremental cutting face.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2012
    Assignee: Neoss Limited
    Inventor: Fredrik Engman
  • Patent number: 8321368
    Abstract: There are provided an identification device, an identification method and an identification processing program, which are capable of significantly reducing a processing burden. An identification device 1 can judge the magnitude relation between an occurrence probability value of a class 0 and an occurrence probability value of a class 1 from the magnitude relation between gkupper and gklower. Hence, it can be identified which one of the classes 0 and 1 is applicable to observed data D1 with a simple arithmetic processing. Accordingly, a complicated and heavy-burden arithmetic processing of an exponential function can be avoided for obtaining the occurrence probability values of the classes 0 and 1, enabling the processing burden to be significantly reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 27, 2012
    Assignee: Niigata University
    Inventors: Shogo Muramatsu, Hidenori Watanabe
  • Patent number: 8307696
    Abstract: The present invention concerns an isothermal reactor (1) comprising a pressure vessel (2) closed at the opposite ends by respective bottoms (3, 4), a reaction zone (9) in said pressure vessel (2) in which at least one catalytic basket (10) is positioned, and at least one heat exchange unit (13) embedded in said at least one catalytic basket (10), each heat exchange unit (13) comprising a plurality of heat exchangers (14) each having an inner chamber intended to be crossed by an operating heat exchange fluid, the reactor being characterized in that it comprises means (17, 18) for picking up samples of operating heat exchange fluid from groups (16) of pre-established exchangers in each heat exchange unit (13), so as to ascertain the possible existence of damaged exchangers (14) in said groups (16) of exchangers through analysis of respective samples of operating heat exchange fluid.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2012
    Assignee: Methanol Casale S.A.
    Inventors: Ermanno Filippi, Enrico Rizzi, Mirco Tarozzo
  • Patent number: 8306665
    Abstract: The present invention provides a control system for the conversion of carbonaceous feedstock into a gas. In particular, the control system is designed to be configurable for use in controlling one or more processes implemented in, and/or by, a gasification system for the conversion of such feedstock into a gas, which may be used for one or more downstream applications. Gasification processes controllable by different embodiments of the disclosed control system may include in various combinations, a converter, a residue conditioner, a recuperator and/or heat exchanger system, one or more gas conditioners, a gas homogenization system and one or more downstream applications. The control system operatively controls various local, regional and/or global processes related to the overall gasification process, and thereby adjusts various control parameters thereof adapted to affect these processes for a selected result.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: Plasco Energy Group Inc.
    Inventors: Andreas Tsangaris, Kenneth Craig Campbell, Douglas Michael Feasby, Alisdair Alan McLean
  • Patent number: 8302672
    Abstract: Plate type heat exchanger (20,120) for a isothermal chemical reactor (60), of the type comprising a substantially box-shaped flattened body (22), defining an internal chamber (24) and equipped with an inlet connection (28) and an outlet connection (29) for a first flow of a heat exchanger operative fluid into and from said chamber (24), at least one supplying-distributing device (26, 126) of a second fluid flow, associated with said body (22) and in fluid communication with the internal chamber (24) thereof, in order to regulate the temperature of said operative fluid, said at least one supplying-distributing device (26,126) being supported inside said internal chamber (24) and in fluid communication therewith.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: Methanol Casale S.A.
    Inventors: Ermanno Filippi, Enrico Rizzi, Mirco Tarozzo, Luca Zanichelli
  • Patent number: 8307207
    Abstract: A biometric key (10) which has an interface or electrical connection to a receptor body (11) which functions as an external power source a biometric sensor, a CPU, a nonvolatile memory unit incorporating a database of authorized biometric signatures or biocodes along with associated firmware required for comparison between data received from the biometric sensor and to provide acceptance or rejection of said data upon electrical connection to the receptor body (11) whereby a signal is sent to a facility (12, 13, 15, 16, 17) accessible by the key (10) advising of said acceptance or rejection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 6, 2012
    Assignee: Mu Hua Investments Ltd.
    Inventors: John David Bacchiaz, Andrej Pajni{hacek over (c)}, Toma{hacek over (z)} {hacek over (Z)}epi{hacek over (c)}, Bo{hacek over (s)}tjan Podlipec
  • Patent number: 8301611
    Abstract: A records management system and method that permits paper records to be tagged, stored and retrieved according to user criteria. The system includes a scanning module, a central server, one or more user workstations and an optical character recognition server. After scanning, the records may then be serialized and categorized by project, and then supplemented automatically by the system with a hypertext data file. The system provides for the manual input of additional hypertext data and merger of the hypertext data file with other records in the project. The end user may then search and/or filter records according to information contained in the hypertext data file. Because the pages may be sorted according to user criteria, the user may shuffle through pages from various different documents, thus allowing them to quickly retrieve the records they need and perform such actions as trend-spotting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: Med-Legal Technologies, LLC
    Inventor: Stephen Schneider
  • Patent number: 8291069
    Abstract: A method for managing sample selection bias is disclosed. Embodiments of the method can include automatically determining an unbiased estimate of a distribution from occurrence data via a special purpose processor. The occurrence data that is utilized in determining the estimate may have an occurrence data sample selection bias that is substantially equivalent to a background data sample selection bias associated with background data. Additionally, the occurrence data may be related to the background data, and the background data may be chosen with the background data sample selection bias. Furthermore, the occurrence data may represent a physically-measurable variable associated with one or more physical and tangible objects or substances.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 23, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2012
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventor: Steven Phillips
  • Patent number: 8282352
    Abstract: A helical multi-piece auger that is rotatable by a moving fluid for the generation of energy is provided. The helical multi-piece auger may include several interior pieces and two tapered end-pieces mounted on a central shaft. The pieces may include an outer spiral flange perpendicular, in both directions, to a portion of helical auger. Each tapered end-piece may be tapered with respect to both the outer diameter of a helical auger portion, and the width of an outer spiral flange. Each tapered end-piece may have an outer edge that effectively merges with the central shaft of the multi-piece auger over a radial arc of between 90 and 180 degrees. The helical multi-piece auger may include wing-shaped nose cones that are axially offset with respect to each other and house hydraulic components. The helical multi-piece auger may be rotatable by the moving fluid to facilitate generation of energy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 9, 2012
    Inventor: Winfield Scott Anderson, Jr.
  • Patent number: 8278783
    Abstract: To provide a power supply apparatus that can supply a large current and a small current to a load circuit in a switchable manner, with a minimum circuit scale and an efficient use of electronic devices and elements contained in conventionally used power supply apparatuses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2012
    Assignee: Oita University
    Inventor: Kimihiro Nishijima
  • Patent number: 8281247
    Abstract: Systems and methods are presented which generate modified email messages, which are largely devoid of embedded functions, from original email messages, which have embedded functions. The embedded functions are amenable to self-executing codes such as viruses, worms, and Trojan programs. Thus, the modified email message without these embedded functions, and any argument associated with these functions, provides a more secure email environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2012
    Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
    Inventors: W. Todd Daniell, Dale W. Malik
  • Patent number: D668324
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2012
    Assignee: Desert Eco Systems Pty Ltd.
    Inventors: Bryan Terry, Mark Johnson
  • Patent number: D673371
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: Heys (USA), Inc.
    Inventor: Haroon Sheikh