Minelab Patent Application - New Discrimination Method?

[Ringmoney]

1 hour ago, Peteren said:

Microsoft and Apple seem to do OK with this

Lets not forget the XP Deus.

[Geotech]

On 6/22/2016 at 1:26 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

If that is the case the patent application will be rejected. Want to make a bet Rick?

I haven't looked at this patent so I have no opinion on it one way or the other, but I'd bet heavily that it gets approved. The US Patent Office, and the patent process in general, is widely recognized as thoroughly and utterly broken. USPTO is so overwhelmed and understaffed that most applications get only a few hours of examination; approval doesn't mean the patent has merit, and I'd guess that over half of all patents have little or no merit. Minelab is well-known to have patents on already-existing techniques, such as Litz coils and Eric Foster's ground subtraction method. They're gaming a broken system.

[Roughwater]

On 6/23/2016 at 9:33 AM, klunker said:

But Petern- There is no profit in a firmware update.

Correct me if I'm wrong but some some companies in the past have found ways to make money on a firmware update.  One example I'm thinking of is White's Eagle II.  I had bought a Whites Eagle many years ago and a year or so later Whites came out with the Eagle 2.  Whites Eagle, I believe was a step up in the evolution of detectors.  It used a removeable microprocessor chip.  If you owned the Eagle  when the Eagle II came out, Whites offered the customer the new upgrade via a replacement Chip for a specified amount of money which I'm thinking may have been a 100 dollars.  I bought the chip of course and installed it myself and had no issues.  The point being today that would be considered a firmware upgrade but Whites made money on it and no one complained.      

[Roughwater]

This is just an extension of my last post but wouldn't it have been great if say the Racer was programmed with a user removeable chip like the Eagle.  Then when the Racer II came out all you had to do was buy the new Chip for X amount of dollars or maybe had the option for less money to upgraded it via the internet? Would you have bought the upgrade?  That may not be the best example as there may have been other improvements made to the Racer other than programming but you get the drift.  I know most of us would pay to get what appears to be a better machine though it really only amounts to the machine being reprogrammed. 

[robby_h]

4 hours ago, Geotech said:

Minelab is well-known to have patents on already-existing techniques, such as Litz coils and Eric Foster's ground subtraction method. They're gaming a broken system.

Sorry but Minelab didn't patent the use of Litz wire in coils, they patented a low eddy current coil.
Bruce Candy discovered that excess metal in a coil responds as if moving relative to the coil when the coil passes over magnetic ground or ferrite type rocks. Third party coil makers could in fact use Litz wire or stranded wire and not infringe the patent if the coil contained large solder joints or metal shielding or any other excess metal that would normally give a signal if moving relative to the coil. Some third party coils were hopelessly noisy on some ground and this was wrongly blamed on the detector.

To demonstrate this, place the coil flat on the ground away from metal and then place a coin on the ground at a distance from the edge of the coil where it would normally give a response if moving. Then pass a ferrite rod, or piece of soft ferrite over the coin and it will give a response as if moving relative to the coil.
You can also try placing a 1 gm nugget on the coil and it will give a response if you pass a piece of soft ferrite over the nugget.

And Minelab do not use Eric Foster's ground subtraction method.
The late sample in Eric's method must be amplified, which means that any target signal in the late sample is also amplified and then subtracted causing a substantial depth loss. The late sample in ML's method doesn't require amplification thus very little depth loss. A little bit of thought and knowledge of nugget modelling should make it clear why this method works better than first thought.
 
Minelab also patented a method that compares the result of one pulse length with the result of a different pulse length, another first, and they also developed the smooth timings that rely on knowledge only disclosed in ML patents and can cancel two different ground types with one setting of the GB. The new salt mode is also novel.

To spend a fortune researching and developing these methods and to not patent them is just plain crazy.

BTW, one of the few who actually understands Minelab's patent in that Geotech thread is a guy called Clancy, those who expressed a negative view obviously have no idea at all.

 

[Randy Lunn]

Steve, well done, this is a comprehensive summary of Minelab's patent filings.

Minelab's last two major patent filings 2/11/16 and 8/6/15 are bold intellectual property grabs covering all mathematical modelling methods and techniques (with any number of variables) for metal detection and discrimination.  The breath of these patents is staggering. Competitors will be boxed out of much innovation if these patents are granted. I doubt any single competitor has the resources to fight these patents although a strong case might be made they are too broad and cover an infinite number of techniques that have not yet been reduced to practice.

Minelab anad Bruce Candy are lapping the competition on the IP front.