Patents by Inventor William W. French

William W. French 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).

  • Patent number: 11527182
    Abstract: A self-rotating display device includes and outer light transmissive container (402) containing a light transmissive fluid (406) and an body (404) containing an electric motor (421) for rotating the body with respect to the outer container. The body also carries an amount of the fluid (430a) contacting the fluid in the outer container through a pressure equalizing gap (431) in the body which forms a fluid pathway between the inner cavity of the body and the inner chamber of the outer container. The fluid pathway forms self-regulating pressure relief structure which accommodates slight pressure variations in the fluid due to climactic conditions for example. A specialized reduced footprint fluid-immersible electric motor having separate field and compass magnets, which do not rotate relative to each other, helps eliminate magnetic cogging. The device can be manufactured according to a method which eliminates the necessity of a fill hole in the body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 13, 2022
    Assignee: TurtleTech Design, Inc.
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Publication number: 20200202755
    Abstract: A self-rotating display device includes and outer light transmissive container (402) containing a light transmissive fluid (406) and an body (404) containing an electric motor (421) for rotating the body with respect to the outer container. The body also carries an amount of the fluid (430a) contacting the fluid in the outer container through a pressure equalizing gap (431) in the body which forms a fluid pathway between the inner cavity of the body and the inner chamber of the outer container. The fluid pathway forms self-regulating pressure relief structure which accommodates slight pressure variations in the fluid due to climactic conditions for example. A specialized reduced footprint fluid-immersible electric motor having separate field and compass magnets, which do not rotate relative to each other, helps eliminate magnetic cogging. The device can be manufactured according to a method which eliminates the necessity of a fill hole in the body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 28, 2020
    Publication date: June 25, 2020
    Applicant: TurtleTech Design, Inc.
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 10580332
    Abstract: A self-rotating display device includes and outer light transmissive container (402) containing a light transmissive fluid (406) and an body (404) containing an electric motor (421) for rotating the body with respect to the outer container. The body also carries an amount of the fluid (430a) contacting the fluid in the outer container through a pressure equalizing gap (431) in the body which forms a fluid pathway between the inner cavity of the body and the inner chamber of the outer container. The fluid pathway forms self-regulating pressure relief structure which accommodates slight pressure variations in the fluid due to climactic conditions for example. A specialized reduced footprint fluid-immersible electric motor having separate field and compass magnets, which do not rotate relative to each other, helps eliminate magnetic cogging. The device can be manufactured according to a method which eliminates the necessity of a fill hole in the body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2020
    Assignee: TurtleTech Design, Inc.
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Publication number: 20190012942
    Abstract: A self-rotating display device includes and outer light transmissive container (402) containing a light transmissive fluid (406) and an body (404) containing an electric motor (421) for rotating the body with respect to the outer container. The body also carries an amount of the fluid (430a) contacting the fluid in the outer container through a pressure equalizing gap (431) in the body which forms a fluid pathway between the inner cavity of the body and the inner chamber of the outer container. The fluid pathway forms self-regulating pressure relief structure which accommodates slight pressure variations in the fluid due to climactic conditions for example. A specialized reduced footprint fluid-immersible electric motor having separate field and compass magnets, which do not rotate relative to each other, helps eliminate magnetic cogging. The device can be manufactured according to a method which eliminates the necessity of a fill hole in the body.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Publication date: January 10, 2019
    Applicant: TurtleTech Design, Inc.
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 6952151
    Abstract: An intriguing and educational display structure (1) appears to be spinning upon itself without any apparent drive mechanism, power supply or bearing. The structure comprises two concentric hollow spheres (3, 5) spaced apart by a transparent fluid (6). The outer sphere is totally transparent, immobile, and may rest on a tripod (2) or other type of support. The inner sphere may be partially transparent or translucent and carries over its surface, a design such as a map of the world (7). The inner sphere rotates within, and independently from, the first outer one. The internal, that is self-contained, drive mechanism uses either a conventional electrical motor (8) with its own field winding and commutator, or one made of a rotor comprising a cross-array of electromagnets (AC, BD) that interact with an ambient magnetic field such as the earth magnetic field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2004
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2005
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 6937125
    Abstract: An intriguing and educational display structure (1) appears to be spinning upon itself without any apparent drive mechanism, power supply or bearing. The structure comprises two concentric hollow spheres (3, 5) spaced apart by a transparent fluid (6). The outer sphere is totally transparent, immobile and may rest on a tripod (2) or other type of support. The inner sphere may be partially transparent or translucent and carries over its surface, a design such as a map of the world (7). The inner sphere rotates within, and independently from the first outer one. The internal, that is self-contained drive mechanism is referenced to either a compass, a light angle detector, or a gravity sensor, and uses either a conventional electrical motor with its own internal field winding and communitator, or one made of a rotor comprising a cross-array of electromagnets (AC, BD) that interact with the earth magnetic field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2005
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 6853283
    Abstract: An intriguing and educational display structure (1) appears to be spinning upon itself without any apparent drive mechanism, power supply or bearing. The structure comprises two concentric hollow spheres (3, 5) spaced apart by a transparent fluid (6). The outer sphere is totally transparent, immobile, and may rest on a tripod (2) or other type of support. The inner sphere may be partially transparent or translucent and carries over its surface, a design such as a map of the world (7). The inner sphere rotates within, and independently from, the first outer one. The internal, that is self-contained, drive mechanism uses either a conventional electrical motor (8) with its own field winding and commutator, or one made of a rotor comprising a cross-array of electromagnets (AC, BD) that interact with an ambient magnetic field such as the earth magnetic field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2000
    Date of Patent: February 8, 2005
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 6393199
    Abstract: A helical scan tape recorder records VHS video and audio at speeds up to 40× the playback speed of a standard VHS VCR. The recorder employs a high speed scanner operating in a helical scan mode. Input signals feed the scanner through a capacitive coupler. For VHS recording, the scanner has 32 heads mounted on its periphery; 16 video heads and 16 audio heads. An external source of video and associated audio provides 8 channels each of video and audio, and each channel drives 2 heads in parallel. During a half rotation of the scanner, heads fed from the 8 channels contact the tape and are recorded, and during the next half rotation the other group of 8 heads are similarly recording. The audio is delayed so that a segment of video records over its associated audio segment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 1998
    Date of Patent: May 21, 2002
    Assignee: Recording Physics, Inc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, James C. Crosby, Robert E. Monteleone, William W. French
  • Patent number: 6122143
    Abstract: The invention concerns a disk drive assembly in which one or more rotating rigid disks are enclosed in a "wet" operating environment in which a liquid lubricant is circulated from the surface of the rotating disks, through a wicking material within the disk drive assembly, and back to the head-disk interface. The wet environment supports the provision of open conical bearings in the spindle and actuator portions of the head-disk-actuator (HDA) of the disk drive assembly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 1990
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2000
    Assignee: Visqus Corporation
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French
  • Patent number: 5488521
    Abstract: An information storage apparatus is disclosed for reading and/or writing information on a rigid disk, which includes a non-Newtonian liquid bearing interface between a transducer and a storage medium, instead of a conventional air or Newtonian liquid bearing. The non-Newtonian liquid has a composition which exhibits plastic or pseudoplastic flow at high rates of shear. Preferably, the liquid is of the class of compounds whose viscosity shows a negative dependence on share rate. Thus, as the relative speed of the transducer and the storage medium increases, while their relative spacing decreases, the increasing shear rate to which the liquid bearing is subjected causes the viscosity of the liquid to reduce. Resultantly, very low flying heights can be achieved, which increases the potential storage density on the storage medium, while the reduced drag exerted on the transducer by the lowered viscosity greatly reduces the power required to rotate the medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 1994
    Date of Patent: January 30, 1996
    Assignee: Conner Peripherals, Inc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French
  • Patent number: 5317463
    Abstract: An information storage apparatus is disclosed for reading and/or writing information on a rigid storage medium which includes a liquid bearing interface between the transducer and medium instead of a conventional air bearing. The liquid is a fluorocarbon which has stable, self-lubricating, viscous and high-density properties. In an exemplary embodiment of a cockpit voice recorder/flight data recorder, low-density metallic components or composite parts of the rigid magnetic disk drive assembly with essentially the same density as the liquid achieve a near zero buoyancy configuration that obviates the effects of vibration and acceleration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 1993
    Date of Patent: May 31, 1994
    Assignee: Conner Peripherals, Inc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French, William B. McHargue
  • Patent number: 5193046
    Abstract: An information storage apparatus is disclosed for reading and/or writing information on a rigid storage medium which includes a liquid bearing interface between the transducer and medium instead of a conventional air bearing. The liquid is a fluorocarbon which has stable, self-lubricating, viscous and high-density properties. In an exemplary embodiment of a cockpit voice recorder/flight data recorder, low-density metallic components or composite parts of the rigid magnetic disk drive assembly with essentially the same density as the liquid achieve a near zero buoyancy configuration that obviates the effects of vibration and acceleration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 25, 1990
    Date of Patent: March 9, 1993
    Assignee: Conner Peripherals, nc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French, William B. McHargue
  • Patent number: 5097368
    Abstract: An information storage apparatus is disclosed for reading and/or writing information on a rigid disk, which includes a non-Newtonian liquid bearing interface between a transducer and a storage medium, instead of a conventional air or Newtonian liquid bearing. The non-Newtonian liquid has a composition which exhibits plastic or pseudoplastic flow at high rates of shear. Preferably, the liquid is of the class of compounds whose viscosity shows a negative dependence on shear rate. Thus, as the relative speed of the transducer and the storage medium increases, while their relative spacing decreases, the increasing shear rate to which the liquid bearing is subjected causes the viscosity of the liquid to reduce. Resultantly, very low flying heights can be achieved, which increases the potential storage density on the storage medium, while the reduced drag exerted on the transducer by the lowered viscosity greatly reduces the power required to rotate the medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 1989
    Date of Patent: March 17, 1992
    Assignee: Conner Peripherals, Inc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French
  • Patent number: 4894741
    Abstract: To provide optimized performance in a magneto-resistive head having a soft adjacent magnetic biasing layer separated from a current-carrying magneto-resistive sense film by an extremely thin electrically insulating film, the invention provides that the soft adjacent magnetic biasing layer be comprised of a magnetically soft layer of high electrical resistivity, whereby the effect of pinholes in the electrically insulating film is significantly lessened.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 1988
    Date of Patent: January 16, 1990
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 4796111
    Abstract: The invention in one embodiment thereof employs separate and respective heads for disparate signal frequency bands. One head is kept in intimate contact with the recording medium to maximize the response to the higher frequency signal band; and the other head is vibrated relative to the surface of the recording medium, thereby to augment(d.phi./dt)and to improve the playback response to the lower frequency signal band. Since the two heads cannot reside physically at the same location, a suitable delay device is employed to bring the signals from the two heads into proper timed relationship, the outputs of the two heads being appropriately band-passed to reconstruct a complex signal composed of the two signal bands.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 13, 1987
    Date of Patent: January 3, 1989
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 4705613
    Abstract: It has been found that, if a (negative) bias is applied to a substrate during the sputtering thereto of Alfesil, selective re-sputtering from the substrate film of aluminum and silicon will leave that film rich in iron and, attendantly, of higher saturation magnetization (17,000 gauss) than the starting material Alfesil (10,000 gauss). Such being the case, the invention provides that the sputtering of Alfesil-type material during the manufacture of a magnetic head be performed in two phases, first, while applying a bias of a first sense to a substrate to be sputtered upon, and, second, while applying a bias of different sense (e.g. a zero bias) to the substrate, thereby to cause a composite thin film to be formed on the substrate. The composition of the thin film in question is: 1. a (generally thin) region of material of high saturation magnetization layered with 2. a (generally thicker) region of lesser saturation magnetization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 1986
    Date of Patent: November 10, 1987
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 4631613
    Abstract: It has been found that, if a (negative) bias is applied to a substrate during the sputtering thereto of Alfesil, selective re-sputtering from the substrate film of aluminum and silicon will leave that film rich in iron and, attendantly, of higher saturation magnetization (17,000 gauss) than the starting material Alfesil (10,000 gauss). Such being the case, the invention provides that the sputtering of Alfesil-type material during the manufacture of a magnetic head be performed in two phases, first, while applying a bias of a first sense to a substrate to be sputtered upon, and, second, while applying a bias of different sense (e.g. a zero bias) to the substrate, thereby to cause a composite thin film to be formed on the substrate. The composition of the thin film in question is: 1. a (generally thin) region of material of high saturation magnetization layered with 2. a (generally thicker) region of lesser saturation magnetization.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 1984
    Date of Patent: December 23, 1986
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventor: William W. French
  • Patent number: 4412379
    Abstract: A multitrack magnetic head is made from an electrically conductive first helix formed on an iron wire that is, in turn, wound to form a second helix. By cutting or lapping a longitudinal flat along one side of the second helix, the first helix is severed into respective discrete coil-wound gapped cores.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 1981
    Date of Patent: November 1, 1983
    Assignee: Eastman Technology Inc.
    Inventors: James U. Lemke, William W. French
  • Patent number: 4398345
    Abstract: A multitrack magnetic head is made from an electrically conductive first helix formed on an iron wire that is, in turn, wound to form a second helix. By longitudinally cutting along one side of the second helix, the first helix is severed into respective coils on discrete gapped cores.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 1981
    Date of Patent: August 16, 1983
    Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
    Inventors: William W. French, James U. Lemke, Richard J. McClure
  • Patent number: RE45824
    Abstract: An intriguing and educational display structure (1) appears to be spinning upon itself without any apparent drive mechanism, power supply or bearing. The structure comprises two concentric hollow spheres (3, 5) spaced apart by a transparent fluid (6). The outer sphere is totally transparent, immobile, and may rest on a tripod (2) or other type of support. The inner sphere may be partially transparent or translucent and carries over its surface, a design such as a map of the world (7). The inner sphere rotates within, and independently from, the first outer one. The internal, that is self-contained, drive mechanism uses either a conventional electrical motor (8) with its own field winding and commutator, or one made of a rotor comprising a cross-array of electromagnets (AC, BD) that interact with an ambient magnetic field such as the earth magnetic field.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 4, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2015
    Inventor: William W. French