Posts Tagged: "MIT patents"

An Inventor’s Guide to Being Taken Seriously by Patent Attorneys

It is important for inventors to understand that there is reluctance among some patent attorneys to take on independent inventors as clients. This is at least in part because some independent inventors take up an extraordinary amount of time and rarely convert into clients. Even if they do convert into clients many want to pay a low rate and are never satisfied.

MIT Innovates tech for oil spill cleanups, biofuels and treatments for autism

A few of the patents that have been issued to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in recent weeks protect inventions developed to address major public health and environmental safety concerns. A novel technique for remediating oil spills in open waterways is disclosed and protected by U.S. Patent No. 8945393, which is titled Magnetic Colloid Petroleum Oil Spill Clean-Up of Ocean Surface, Depth, and Shore Regions. The patent claims a method of removing oil from water by mixing a magnetizable material with water to form a magnetorheological fluid and magnetically attracting that water to separate the oil and water phases. This innovation allows for the magnetization of oil to remove oil from water sources and transfer the oil to storage while releasing water back into the ocean.

MIT Patents Surprisingly Wide Array of Technologies

Our featured patent application today features an artificial knee device that surpasses the range of motion available through previous passive devices or surgical implants. The variable motion of the mechanical knee joint found in this patent application would grant an implant patient a much greater degree of motion throughout their daily lives. Other patent applications that we decided to look at more closely include a vehicle engine designed for more efficient methanol consumption as well as more energy-efficient incandescent lighting devices. We also profile a series of patents recently issued to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to protect an array of technologies, most of them dealing with better designed computer user interfaces for various jobs. One system includes a collapsible stylus device that can enable better 3D image editing performance. Another system would control a novel style of vending machine that dispenses entertainment and information along with food and beverages. We also were piqued by a technology developed with a partner institution in Saudi Arabia for better desalination methods to create drinkable water.