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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Patent Watch
Inventors work out new ways to detect security threats
By Kirk Teska, managing partner of Iandiorio Teska & Coleman
MHT's Galen Moore: Honoring innovation in New England
Cable, telecom companies see net neutrality battle
New England prepared to leverage smart grid expertise
Airport screening, and threat detection in general, is in the news. Several New England companies are actively patenting ways to scan people, luggage and containers, and detect explosives and other threats. Let’s take a look at a few recently issued patents and published patent applications on the topic of threat detection.
• Patent No. 7,594,447 (Sept. 29) is for a small analyzer with a window where a person is instructed to press his thumb. Traces of any explosives on the person’s thumb are detected by an ion trap mobility spectrometer, and the person’s fingerprint is recorded by a reader. Joseph Napoli of Windham, N.H., is the sole inventor; GE Homeland Protection Inc., located in Newark, Calif., is the assignee.
• L-3 Communications Security and Detection Systems Inc. of Woburn is seeking a patent for a surveillance system including a millimeter wave portal that produces a blurred image of a person to address privacy concerns. Patent application No. US 2009/0322873 (Dec. 31) includes New England inventors John Reilly of Waltham, Thomas Breen of Winchester, Paul Hurd of Norfolk, and Michael Lanzaro of North Reading.
• Martin Annis of Cambridge won patent No. 7,561,666 on July 14 for a body-scan system that produces a “pencil beam” of X-rays that strike a person. X-rays scattered backward are detected by a curved scintillation detector, allowing increased contrast and spatial resolution of the resulting image to more accurately evaluate potential threats carried by a person.
• Patent No. 7,608,812 (Oct. 27) discusses a cargo container equipped with a light source transmitting through an optical fiber to a detector, enabling security professionals to ascertain if the container has been tampered with or if a device emitting nuclear radiation is in the container. Gilbert Beinhocker of Belmont is the inventor; Tamperproof Container Licensing Corp., also in Belmont, is the assignee.
• Cargo containers are also the subject of published patent application No. US 2009/0225931 (Sept. 10). An X-ray computerized tomography subsystem is used to scan a cargo container and, if a suspect material is detector, a neutron beam subsystem is activated to identify the material. Peter Rothschild of Newton is the inventor in this American Science and Engineering Inc. (Billerica) application.
• Sionex Corp. located in Bedford is busy engineering ion mobility analyzers used to detect explosive materials. Sionex patent No. 7,605,367 (Oct. 20) discloses a more sensitive analyzer for use with explosives to which a taggant has been added. The list of inventors includes Raanan Miller of Chestnut Hill; Erkinjon Nazarov of Lexington; David Wheeler of Haverhill; Quan Shi of Westford; and John Wright of Billerica.
• Raytheon Co. in Waltham won patent No. 7,634,361 on Dec. 15 for an event alert system for handling emergencies such as terrorist attacks. Event modules can include sensors configured to detect explosions, biological threats, radiation and the like. The modules notify a command center, which transmits instructions regarding how to best respond. The inventors are Michael Levesque of North Kingstown, R.I., and Richard Karon of Jamestown, R.I.
• KD Secure LLC, located in Cambridge, received patent No. 7,595,815 on Sept. 29 for a safety system with a rules engine that reviews video and other data, and generates intelligent alerts based on the data to address security concerns on, for example, university campuses and military installations. John Donovan of Hamilton is the first listed inventor.
• In other patent news, the review of patent applications for “green” technologies, can now be accelerated via a new pilot program implemented by the U.S. Patent Office.
• Also, a good, free way to search for patent litigation court decisions is via “Google Scholar.” Use it to see why everyone is talking about the “KSR” and “Bilski” decisions.
Kirk Teska is regular contributor to Mass High Tech.
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