Hon Hai / Foxconn Seeks Patent on Method of Simulating Boomerang Flight on Mobile Device

The Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, also known by the business alias Foxconn Technology Group, is a huge force in the field of global electronics manufacturer. Headquartered in New Taipei, Taiwan, this electronics contract manufacturer is responsible for the fabrication of Apple iPhones and many other consumer devices widely used across the world. The corporation recently reported a 21 percent in first-quarter profits, mainly because of increased sales of iPhones and related electronics. In recent years, Foxconn has been under scrutiny for its workers’ wages and other employment issues. Although the company plans to increase wages for its Chinese workers, employees at its plants in India have complained recently about illicit retirement buyouts which the company has been trying to offer workers at factories in Chennai, India.

Never before has IPWatchdog’s Companies We Follow series focused its attention on this Taiwanese multinational corporation, but today we wanted to take our first perusal of the innovations coming out of the research facilities of this electronics manufacturer. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office handles a wide degree of patent application filings from Foxconn. The large amount of patent applications and recently issued patents pertaining to improvements to electronic components and manufacturing methods are largely consistent with the corporation’s main operational focus.

Our first foray into the innovations coming from Hon Hai Precision begins with a look at our featured patent application, which describes a method for assembling a fan rotor for cooling of electronic components. This method provides superior fan security and durability through a cost-effective method of attaching a shaft to a fan hub. Other patent applications describe some fairly unique innovations which stirred our imaginations, including an electronic blackboard as well as a method of simulating boomerang flight paths through a mobile device.

Hon Hai Precision is constantly patenting new technologies and our search of patents recently issued to this corporation from the USPTO rendered up a number of patents protecting some useful improvements to various electronics systems. A couple of patents are directed at components for dissipating heat from electronic devices. Container data centers, which house servers and other advanced computing electronics, are also the focus of a couple of issued patents, one of which focuses on heat dissipation while the other is directed at a system for reducing corrosion near areas with high atmospheric salinity.

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Method for Manufacturing Rotor
U.S. Patent Application No. 20140027416

As electronic devices continue to develop in complexity, most manufacturers are creating electronic components which are smaller than ever and operate at higher frequencies for faster operation. This offers incredible power to consumers and employees who use devices in various settings, as well as greater portability for those devices. However, smaller components operating at higher frequencies create a lot of heat which must be dissipated so that the electronics continue to work properly.

To aid in heat dissipation, fan components are often manufactured and installed within electronic devices to cool other components. A fan rotor is typically comprised of a hub connected to a shaft, with a number of blades extending outward from the hub. Various methods for affixing the shaft of the fan to the fan’s hub exist, but are either very costly or involve increased risk of damage to the fan’s hub.

Foxconn Technology filed the above patent application with the USPTO in December 2012 to protect a method of creating a fan rotor which reduces the risks of the manufacturing issues previously mentioned. This method of manufacture is achieved through the use of a fixture involving a slotted column and an annular, or ring-shaped, protrusion extending from the top face of the column.

To complete the fan rotor construction, a shaft is inserted through the slot into the column. The hub is placed over the column so that it makes contact with the annular protrusion. The hub also contains a cover which the shaft makes contact with; the slot centers the positioning of the shaft against the hub’s cover. The hub and shaft of the fan rotor are then welded together through the use of a laser beam, which focuses on the cover and causes the center of the hub to melt.

As Claim 1 explains, Foxconn is pursuing the right to protect:

“A method for manufacturing a rotor, comprising: making a fixture defining a slot therein; disposing a shaft in the slot of the fixture; making and disposing a hub on the fixture such that the shaft contacts a central area of the hub; welding the shaft to the central area of the hub by a laser beam.”

Other Patent Applications

We found plenty of patent applications assigned to both Foxconn and Hon Hai Precision over the past few weeks which had been published by the USPTO. We were fairly intrigued by the large number of applications we found which listed Hon Hai Precision or Foxconn as one of multiple assignees, suggesting collaborative research and development with firms like Fu Tai Hua Industry of Shenzhen, China, and Hong Fu Jin Precision of Wuhan, China. Today, we’ve tried to stick to applications which are solely assigned to Foxconn or Hon Hai Precision. Foxconn is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronics, and its recent inventions filed with the USPTO through patent applications relate to a wide scope of electronics fabrication for various applications.

From U.S. Patent Application No. 20140125343, which is titled “Instrument for Measuring LED Light Source.”

Manufacturing electronic devices of any kind requires a manufacturer to undergo extensive product testing to ensure that devices hold up to rigorous standards of operation or possess the proper amount of durability. U.S. Patent Application No. 20140125343, which is titled Instrument for Measuring LED Light Source, would protect an LED light source measuring instrument with an electrode seat for supplying power to the LED and a cooling device for removing heat generated by the light. This measuring device can observe light source functioning non-destructively by removing heat which can affect the future operation of the LED. We were also intrigued by the unique device for educational lectures and other settings described within U.S. Patent Application No. 20140145950, entitled Writing Device Having Light Emitting Diode Display Panel. This patent application discloses an electronic blackboard which reduces health concerns associated with traditional blackboards, such as chalk dust pollution.This electronic blackboard includes a plurality of terminals for operating the display panel, including a button for transmitting an erasing signal for content displayed on the electronic blackboard.

U.S. Patent Application No. 20140142910, titled Handheld Device and Method for Simulating Flight Path of Boomerang, would protect a method of simulating a boomerang’s flight path through the display screen of a handheld device. To implement this game, measurements on device movement are collected from an acceleration sensor as well as a gyroscope sensor, which can detect the rotational angle of device motion. This allows the device to display a boomerang flight path that utilizes the acceleration and rotational movement of a user’s throwing motion.

From U.S. Patent Application No. 20140142910, titled “Handheld Device and Method for Simulating Flight Path of Boomerang.”

We also noticed a couple of intriguing innovations related to various forms of consumer entertainment which can be obtained through electronic computing devices. A novel method of selectively searching for video content within a large clip without fast-forwarding or rewinding is the focus of U.S. Patent Application No. 20140140681, filed under the title Video Content Search Method, System, and Device. This novel system allows users to search for video content within a clip by keyword and directing users to video frames within the clip which correspond to subtitles matching the keyword. Finally, we noticed a fun innovation which seems to only be meant to be experienced as an electronic game making use of particular components within many consumer electronic devices.

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Issued Patents of Note

With 2,279 U.S. patent grants issued from the USPTO during 2013, Hon Hai Precision earned the 8th-most patent grants among all corporations for that year. It is far and away the top recipient of U.S. patent grants from Taiwan, having earned 1,300 more patents that year than second-place Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Our first search into Foxconn patents issued by the USPTO also showed us an incredible scope of innovation related to electronics, from systems for image correction to electricity generation.

As we noted in our coverage of today’s featured application, electronics manufacturers across the world are saddled with the problem of removing heat from highly functioning electronic components to reduce wear and damage. U.S. Patent No. 8686296, issued under the title Electronic Device Having Heat Dissipation Device, describes a different type of heat dissipation device comprised of a heat sink, a bracket and a pressing member. This device is capable of drawing heat away from computer chips or a central processing unit by contacting certain electronic component surfaces with the heat sink through the use of the pressing member. Heat dissipation improvements in larger computing environments are the focus of U.S. Patent No. 8734212, entitled Container Data Center Having High Heat Dissipation Efficiency. The container data center (CDC) in this invention can house servers and a cooling system. These components are arranged in such a way to provide optimal heat dissipation efficiency within a single CDC. CDCs can also be affected from high levels of atmospheric salinity, which are often experienced in seashore environments. U.S. Patent No. 8737072, which is titled Container Data Center with Water Troughs, describes a system of water troughs and pumps to transfer water along the outer side plates and sidewalls of a CDC to reduce corrosion caused by excessive salinity.

From U.S. Patent No. 8737072, which is titled “Container Data Center with Water Troughs.”

Foxconn has also recently received the right to protect a method of gaining even more benefits from a CDC water trough system similar to the one described in the above paragraph. U.S. Patent No. 8742611, which is titled Hydropower Generating System, protects a system that recycles the water used for a CDC heat dissipation system through a system for generating electricity. This system, comprised of a turbine, generator and other components, is capable of generating alternating current and direct current in different embodiments. We’re wrapping up our analysis of Foxconn’s recently issued patents with a look at an intriguing patent directed at systems of automatically identifying blemishes during image processing. U.S. Patent No. 8743210, titled Blemish Detection System and Method Using Recursion, utilizes a brightness module to calculate the brightness of pixels. Then the image is analyzed with a blemish detection module which can identify a group of pixels as a blemish if they do not meet a pre-determined brightness threshold. This automated system removes the risk of human error from a process which typically requires manual labor today.