Patents Represented by Attorney Peter I. Lippman
  • Patent number: 4920251
    Abstract: Two square self-enclosing interchangeable food baskets can be used singly, or stacked shelf-style, or stacked with the upper basket inverted to form a single tall domed compartment. To generally confine the steam, a separate cover fits closely with the upper basket in either orientation, or with the single basket if only one is in use; the lower basket fits closely with a water tray, and the two baskets fit closely with each other. Each basket is a unitary plastic component, eliminating the severe cleaning problems, hot-surface and possible health hazards, and high cost of aluminum trays used in earlier self-enclosing baskets. The water tray too is plastic, eliminating the similar cleaning problems, hazards, and high cost of cast-aluminum water trays in an earlier extendable self-enclosing system. A die-cast heater is mounted in a central orifice of the water tray, and surrounded by a central well formed in the tray.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 1989
    Date of Patent: April 24, 1990
    Assignee: Acry Industries, Incorporated
    Inventors: Joan E. Whitenack, George Sanchez, Earlyn W. Stone, Buddy A. Colton
  • Patent number: 4906238
    Abstract: External grooving on a catheter traps microorganisms nurtured by mucus in a patient's body. The grooving also traps contaminating debris, originating outside the body, that migrates into the body along the catheter exterior. Energy, which may be a propagating vibration or electrical energy or a radioactive material, is carried to the groove (or grooves), from a source outside the body. This function is performed by a fiber embedded or held in the catheter, or by a liquid column (e.g., in an annular lumen) in the catheter, or in other ways. The energy disables microorganisms and disintegrates debris trapped at the groove. The groove depth, interface geometry, and in the case of vibrational energy the vibration frequency too, are selected to minimize projection of energy into the patient's tissues. Suction may be applied as through an auxiliary lumen (or, in some drain catheters, intermittently through the primary drain lumen itself), to remove resulting detritus at the grooving.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 14, 1987
    Date of Patent: March 6, 1990
    Assignee: Albert R. Greenfeld
    Inventors: Albert R. Greenfeld, Jonathan I. Greenfeld
  • Patent number: 4904242
    Abstract: A hollow needle projects from the forward end of a needle holder. The needle has a permanently attached ferrule, which is circumferentially grooved. The holder includes a handle to be grasped by a user, a frontal leaved structure for gripping the needle ferrule at its groove, and a rearward skirt for guarding the rear end of the needle. The rear of the needle is accessible within the skirt for attachment to vacuum vials, or to tubing for conducting liquid from the patient to a remote storage vessel. After use to withdraw liquid from a patient, the needle is released from the handle and retracted. The release and retraction are manually actuated by a simple unitary rectilinear motion. Preferably the mechanism for initiating release and retraction includes a separate safety container that is inserted into the rear skirt of the holder in the same manner as a vacuum vial, but that receives and encloses the entire needle for disposal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 1988
    Date of Patent: February 27, 1990
    Inventor: John C. Kulli
  • Patent number: 4900307
    Abstract: A hollow needle projects from the "forward" end of a hollow handle. A syringe communicates with the interior of the needle by way of the hollow handle. After use for passing liquid between the syringe and a patient's body, the needle is released from the handle and its sharp end retracted into the handle, beyond reach. The handle has an aperture big enough for the needle but not for fingertips. The needle rides in a carrier block that slides inside the handle. Initially the block is secured in the handle against the forward end, with the sharp end of the needle protruding out through the aperture. A manually releasable latch holds the block in this position. The latch includes mutually interfering stop elements on the exterior of the block and interior of the handle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 1988
    Date of Patent: February 13, 1990
    Inventor: John C. Kulli
  • Patent number: 4811987
    Abstract: This chair fold flat for storage and shipment, or unfolds and configures for use, in only a few (e.g., three to five) seconds. Even though it is very strong and stable, the chair can be made from one very simple blank of five rectangular panels, two smaller auxiliary panels and a glue tab, using only two glue joints. Its lower portion is a rectangular glued tube with a vertical seat-support panel across the inside, parallel to two of the outer walls of the tube--so that the support panel, though preglued in place, folds and unfolds with the tube. The upper part of the chair is an extension of the tube, but the front panel folds inward, backward, and downward to form a seat that spans the tube, supported by the front panel and by the seat-support panel. The upper part of each side also folds inward and downward, but only above a diagonal fold line running from the upper rear corner of the chair downward and forward to meet the fold line of the front-and-seat panel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 1986
    Date of Patent: March 14, 1989
    Inventors: James R. Volpe, James L. Kelley
  • Patent number: 4620656
    Abstract: This system selects and delivers a rivet of correct size for workpiece thickness at each rivet location. Positive control of rivet orientation is provided at the crucial junction point of plural supply paths with the delivery path to the riveting machine. This is done by a simplified modular device, called a "transfer station," which hands off one rivet from the correct supply path to the delivery path, on demand by a measuring device. Positive rivet-orientation control is also provided everywhere else in the system, including the escapements and the injector--making it feasible to use a pneumatic tube for delivery to the injector. Thus only the measuring device and injector need be mounted to the installing head of the riveter. Orientation at the escapement is fixed by a dual-blade mechanism that constrains each rivet shank, keeping the rivet from toppling head-first into a pneumatic supply tube to the transfer station.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 1983
    Date of Patent: November 4, 1986
    Assignee: Herbert L. Engineering Corp.
    Inventors: Archie R. McClay, Raymond H. Billington, Chester W. Ruckman
  • Patent number: 4595839
    Abstract: A pair of connectors that convert electrical signals into optical signals for transmission along an optic fiber, and that also convert optical signals received from an optic fiber into electrical signals, is combined with a two-optic-fiber cable to provide an interconnecting cable assembly that receives electrical signals from a sending apparatus at either end of the cable, and presents electrical signals to a receiving apparatus at the other end of the cable, although the intervening transmission is optical. One optic fiber optically links the electrical-to-optical converter (light emitter) in one connector to the optical-to-electrical converter (light detector) in the second connector, while the other optic fiber optically links the emitter in the second connector to the detector in the first connector; thus the cable assembly is bidirectional and may be laid down and connected in either orientation with equivalent performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 15, 1985
    Date of Patent: June 17, 1986
    Assignee: Tetra-Tech, Inc.
    Inventors: Steven W. Braun, Henri Hodara
  • Patent number: 4580773
    Abstract: This suction foot or "sheet sucker" has a cylinder and a hollow piston fitted in the cylinder. The piston has a piston rod whose tip protrudes downwardly from the cylinder to apply suction to the top sheet of stock in a small press. The cylinder is supported from and moved by a hollow support rod that is connected with the suction system of the press. The piston and rod are spring-loaded upward relative to the cylinder. The hole in the support rod communicates with a point in the cylinder cavity below the piston. Applied suction consequently draws the cylinder and rod downward, against the spring action, in effect telescoping the suction foot tip outwardly toward the stock. When a sheet of stock closes the bottom end of the hollow piston and rod, pressure on the cylinder is equalized and the suction foot tip retracts, raising the stock for travel into the press. The necessary air communication is effected by several fine air passageways in the cylinder side wall and top wall.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 1984
    Date of Patent: April 8, 1986
    Inventor: Richard Minkle
  • Patent number: 4577184
    Abstract: This security system monitors a remote intrusion-sensing unit by probing it with a probe signal that is randomly modulated. The intrusion-sensing unit replies with a composite signal in which "secure" or "alarm" status information is superimposed on the random modulation of the probe signal. (The system may if desired be elaborated to accept and utilize other status information, such as "access" or "reverse correlation.")A master unit checks the correlation of the reply-signal modulation with the probe-signal modulation, and generates a special "deception" alarm if the correlation is not in accordance with an established pattern--such as positive correlation, reverse correlation, or correlation varying in some way that is systematic or otherwise determinable by the master unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 23, 1983
    Date of Patent: March 18, 1986
    Assignee: Tetra-Tech, Inc.
    Inventors: Henri Hodara, Willard H. Wells
  • Patent number: 4534477
    Abstract: This bottle has a projection or "latch" from its neck, just below the thread, and along and near the lower end of that thread. There is a gap in the cap thread, that lines up with the "latch" when the cap is fully screwed on. The cap deforms when screwed on, passing the "latch" over the end of the cap thread and into the gap. The "latch" then resists cap removal. Only torque beyond the ability of a small child (or even requiring use of a tool) frees the cap. A second projection from the neck, a "flag", is breakable. It is below the bottom end of the neck thread, just above (measured along the thread) the "latch". The "flag" can fold against the neck, but springs out if released. It catches in the cap-thread gap when the cap is unscrewed, and is torn off or broken by forcible removal of the cap. Its removal or breakage evidences that the bottle has been opened.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 1984
    Date of Patent: August 13, 1985
    Inventor: Herman Laub, III
  • Patent number: 4367460
    Abstract: A transparent continuous optical fiber is embedded in a transparent panel made of glass or plastic, with the two ends of the fiber accessible from outside the panel for coupling to a visible or invisible light source and detector respectively. By nearly matching the refractive indices of the panel and the fiber, and using good-quality material for the fiber so that it does not scatter significant amounts of the light passing through it, the fiber can be made virtually invisible although it establishes a complete light circuit. Cutting or breaking through the panel at a point intersecting the fiber interrupts the light circuit and triggers an alarm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 1979
    Date of Patent: January 4, 1983
    Inventor: Henri Hodara
  • Patent number: 4360249
    Abstract: Each of two optical fibers to be mated is cemented to one end of a respective quarter-pitch segment of graded-index rod, at the axis of the rod. The opposite end of each of the two quarter-pitch segments is polished flat, perpendicular to the axis. The two polished ends are faced toward each other and held in precise parallelism, but not necessarily touching, by a suitable connector housing. An optical signal from one optical fiber is collimated by its attached graded-index rod segment for transmission across the gap to the other rod, which in turn focuses the parallel rays onto the receiving tip of its attached optical fiber.A planar window, such as a pressure window of a deep-underwater craft, may be interposed between the two sides of the connector without disturbing performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 1979
    Date of Patent: November 23, 1982
    Assignee: Tetra-Tech, Inc.
    Inventor: Charles S. Slemon
  • Patent number: 4300603
    Abstract: This device for rapid and extremely accurate filling of containers includes a duct for bleeding off gas bubbles from a metering device, where prior bubble-eliminating provisions are inadequate due to extreme product viscosity. The device also has relative adjustment between a positive mechanical stop, used to define very precisely the substance volume metered by a biacting piston, and a control switch used to reverse the piston. This adjustability corrects an inaccuracy arising in prior devices due to the necessarily slower speed of the piston with extremely viscous product.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 1980
    Date of Patent: November 17, 1981
    Inventor: Herman Laub, III
  • Patent number: 4268115
    Abstract: A metal ferrule is attached to the end of an optic fiber, with the ferrule end and fiber tip coplanar. The ferrule and fiber are slidably mounted in a housing which incorporates a quick-release connecting catch, and are abutted by spring-loading against a mating optical device. The catch is adapted to engage a fitting secured to the mating optical device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 1979
    Date of Patent: May 19, 1981
    Assignee: Tetra-Tech, Inc.
    Inventors: Charles S. Slemon, Steven W. Braun
  • Patent number: 4095628
    Abstract: This device for rapid and extremely accurate filling of bottles includes means for decreasing the dispensing flow rate during particular phases of each fill. This feature minimizes foaming of dispensed fluids when the filling operation proceeds into the portion of each bottle wherein conditions are conductive to foaming, while maintaining a rapid fill rate for other portions of each bottle. The device also has a novel spool valve for control of flow between supply, metering device and bottle: this valve has a hollow-centered spool, the hollow center providing in one operational configuration a fluid-flow bypass which reduces the number of ports and connections outside the valve barrel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 1976
    Date of Patent: June 20, 1978
    Inventor: Herman Laub, III
  • Patent number: 4054384
    Abstract: Apparatus and process provide qualitative and quantitative analysis of sample constituent(s) in a stream of fluid, relatively free from qualitative ambiguities and quantitative zero displacements due to slowly changing contamination in the measurement stream. Slowly changing zero displacement of a continuous measurement signal -- caused by slowly changing contaminant concentrations in the stream -- is cancelled out by deriving two continuous versions of the measurement signal, both being time-distorted, and continuously manipulating the two versions as by subtraction.One of the two time-distorted versions serves as a primary or "main" signal; this main signal version is distorted in such a way that the time distortion of the other signal version is roughly symmetrical with respect to the main signal version, to improve measurement accuracy when the rate of zero displacement is nonlinear. In the case of spectral analysis, particular advantages lie in removal of misleading "background" spectral components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 18, 1976
    Date of Patent: October 18, 1977
    Inventor: Roland C. Hawes
  • Patent number: 4029416
    Abstract: Apparatus and process provide qualitative and quantitative analysis of sample constituent(s) in a stream of fluid, relatively free from qualitative ambiguities and quantitative zero displacements due to slowly changing contamination in the measurement stream. Slowly changing zero displacement of a continuous measurement signal -- caused by slowly changing contaminant concentrations in the stream -- is cancelled out by deriving two continuous versions of the measurement signal, at least one being time-distorted, and continuously manipulating the two versions as by subtraction. In the case of spectral analysis, particular advantages lie in removal of misleading "background" spectral components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 1975
    Date of Patent: June 14, 1977
    Inventor: Roland C. Hawes