Patents by Inventor Michael Sullivan Tignor

Michael Sullivan Tignor has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Trip unit and circuit breaker to prevent nuissance tripping
    Patent number: 6757626
    Abstract: A trip unit and circuit breaker including the trip unit include phase protection circuits, a ground fault protection circuit, and, a phase current qualification circuit intermediate the phase protection circuits and the ground fault protection circuit, wherein the phase current qualification circuit includes circuitry for determining a minimum ground fault setting for detected phase currents.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 17, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 29, 2004
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: John James Dougherty, Michael Sullivan Tignor
  • ADAPTIVE ALGORITHM TO PREVENT NUISSANCE TRIPPING
    Publication number: 20030125885
    Abstract: A trip unit and circuit breaker including the trip unit include phase protection circuits, a ground fault protection circuit, and, a phase current qualification circuit intermediate the phase protection circuits and the ground fault protection circuit, wherein the phase current qualification circuit includes circuitry for determining a minimum ground fault setting for detected phase currents.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 17, 2003
    Publication date: July 3, 2003
    Inventors: John James Dougherty , Michael Sullivan Tignor
  • Adaptive algorithm to prevent nuissance tripping
    Patent number: 6546342
    Abstract: A method for ground fault circuit interruption is disclosed in which the method includes determining a minimum ground fault setting for detected phase currents, comparing the minimum ground fault setting to a customer provided threshold, determining a maximum value between the minimum ground fault setting and the customer provided threshold, and, utilizing the maximum value as a ground fault threshold. A storage medium encoded with machine-readable computer program code for determining a ground fault threshold may include instructions for causing a circuit breaker microprocessor to implement the method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2003
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: John James Dougherty, Michael Sullivan Tignor