Is This Good News?

[John SC]

[D&P-OR]

Carl----What do you think?

[Steve Herschbach]

Mot sure it’s good news but I’m sure it’s not bad news, unless you are a Minelab competitor. Just looks like a renewal of ZVT. Nothing to get too excited about, but maybe presaging a release of a GPZ 8000 in the not too distant future? Or not. 

[phrunt]

yea, something has been going on with the original patent where it says it was abandoned, so it just looks like it's been refiled under a new number.  Same old patent though.  They seem to refile it every few years.

US20220390643A1 - Constant current metal detector with driven transmit coil - Google Patents

I don't understand this stuff though.

Application US17/888,081 events 

2008-06-27

Priority claimed from AU2008903280A

2009-06-29

Priority claimed from PCT/AU2009/000836

2011-06-17

Priority claimed from PCT/AU2011/000738

2012-12-19

Priority claimed from US13/720,828

2014-03-26

Priority claimed from US14/225,908

2022-08-15

Application filed by Minelab Electronics Pty Ltd

2022-08-15

Priority to US17/888,081

2022-12-08

Publication of US20220390643A1

2023-07-17

Priority to US18/353,711

2024-06-07

Priority to US18/737,833

Status

Abandoned

 

[Geotech]

Simon is right, this patent has been filed/abandoned/refiled multiple times over the years. No idea why, it's a bit odd. But it's for the GPZ7000.

[Steve Herschbach]

Maybe a gambit to extend and keep it in force for longer than normal? I find it hard to think with something this important that it is accidental.

[phrunt]

That's what I was thinking, probably know some loophole to keep it active longer or provide some other benefit by renewing it all the time unnecessarily, they probably have a few full-time people looking after this stuff, it's what keeps the competitors away 🙂

ZVT is the last hope they have to stay on top in the gold area, PI is now becoming far more competitive and they won't hold top dog in PI forever I think, once they hit a stage where its hard to get any improvement the others then have time to catch up.  I remember when the Equinox came out, I thought that was it, Minelab owns VLF, then XP came along with the Deus 2, and Nokta the Legend which pipped the Equinox.  The Manticore is a tweaked-up Equinox which XP is still very competitive with and the Legend will eventually be a tweaked up Legend 2.  Once competitors catch up it's increasingly hard to stay ahead.

Unless they come up with something entirely new, I believe ZVT is the future, and it has a lot of potential.

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

I could only think that Minelab is trying everything possible to prevent the competitors from being able to use their older technology and patents as this has cost them dearly when their patent rights expire.

The 7000 is reaching its tenth year in production anniversary and the engineers have been working on its replacement since then, so should be a 8000 with a huge amount of improvements coming when they feel they have a need to release it. Right now seems like a good time to release a new version as the 7000 sales are going down drastically here from my experience and now the 6000 is also slowly decreasing due to current competition pricing and similar performance options.

[Steve Herschbach]

21 minutes ago, phrunt said:

That's what I was thinking, probably know some loophole to keep it active longer or provide some other benefit by renewing it all the time unnecessarily, they probably have a few full-time people looking after this stuff, it's what keeps the competitors away 🙂

ZVT is the last hope they have to stay on top in the gold area, PI is now becoming far more competitive and they won't hold top dog in PI forever I think, once they hit a stage where its hard to get any improvement the others then have time to catch up.  I remember when the Equinox came out, I thought that was it, Minelab owns VLF, then XP came along with the Deus 2, and Nokta the Legend which pipped the Equinox.  The Manticore is a tweaked-up Equinox which XP is still very competitive with and the Legend will eventually be a tweaked up Legend 2.  Once competitors catch up it's increasingly hard to stay ahead.

Unless they come up with something entirely new, I believe ZVT is the future, and it has a lot of potential.

In one sense the GPZ 7000 was a crude proof of concept model. I am sure over a decade later Minelab can produce a much more refined version of the detector. The actual performance gains may not be all that impressive however, more like what we saw going from Equinox to Manticore. It was Equinox that was the big leap. Refinement, not revolution. I think people expecting "huge improvements" are in for a letdown.