Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 5884480 | Fluid power control circuit In the field of fluid power control, there is a need for a control scheme that supplies working fluid under pressure to a load in the event of failure of power supplies to control apparatus associated with the circuit. The disclosure relates to a control ... | 03/23/1999 |
| 5876165 | Dunnage bar A dunnage bar construction comprises an elongated tubular bar of rectangular cross-section having an elongated slot in the inner wall thereof. A reinforcement for the tubular bar comprises an elongated channel extending lengthwise within the bar. The chan... | 03/02/1999 |
| 5862762 | Method and facility for refuse incineration using a fire-grate-type incinerator and with separation of non-combustibles Combustible is comminuted and dried, and metal and noncombustible are removed from the coarsely comminuted combustible. Then, the combustible is secondarily comminuted and separated into coarse combustible and fluff which is fine combustible. The coarse c... | 01/26/1999 |
| 5840067 | Centerflow catheter A device for supporting the outlet end portion of an intravascular catheter within a blood vessel while a treating agent is delivered into the blood stream through an orifice at the tip. The device comprises a frame having a plurality of radially outwardl... | 11/24/1998 |
| 5802250 | Method to eliminate noise in repeated sound start during digital sound recording A method to eliminate noise in repeated sound start during a digital sound recording playback by using a slowly descending or ascending waveform to eliminate the discontinuity between sound waves which can be utilized in applications such as a playback on... | 09/01/1998 |
| 5772831 | Filter membrane element and method of manufacturing same A filter membrane element for a membrane separation unit for use in a water treatment apparatus or the like, and a method of manufacturing the same. An organic filter membrane including a plate-like support member made of nonwoven fabric and a film coatin... | 06/30/1998 |
| 5749307 | Refuse incineration facility including material crusher and melt burner There are provided a pretreatment facility (1) and a incineration/melting facility (2). In the incineration/melting facility, an incineration chamber (3) and a melting chamber (5) are integrally formed through a partition wall (7) so that incineration res... | 05/12/1998 |
| 5741875 | Biodegradable plastics and composites from wood In this disclosure, there are provided materials which completely degrade in the environment far more rapidly than pure synthetic plastics but which possesses the desirable properties of a thermoplastic: strength, impact resistance, stability to aqueous a... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5726634 | Smoke alarm with high and low pitched tones A smoke alarm with high and low pitched tones including a conventional smoke detector adapted to activate upon the detection of smoke associated with fire. A first high tone buzzer is included for emitting a high pitched tone upon activation of the smoke ... | 03/10/1998 |
| 5722316 | Carrier for aluminum food pans A carrier for shallow downwardly dished flexible aluminum food pans. The carrier is generally channel-shaped, having a bottom wall and side walls extending upwardly from the opposite side edges of the bottom wall. Flanges extend laterally inwardly from th... | 03/03/1998 |
| 5708530 | Multi-zoned dichroic mirror for liquid crystal projection system A multi-zoned dichroic mirror for use in a liquid crystal projection system that is capable producing projected images having improved color uniformity including a dichroic mirror which is divided into at least two regions of a first and a second region, ... | 01/13/1998 |
| 5701013 | Wafer metrology pattern integrating both overlay and critical dimension features for SEM or AFM measurements The present invention provides a wafer metrology pattern integrating both overlay and critical dimension features for SEM or AFM measurements. The present invention provides an improved test mask target which contains lines measuring 0.25 μm, 0.3 μm, an... | 12/23/1997 |
| 5656708 | Process for making graft copolymers from lignite and vinyl monomers A process for making a water-insoluble, graft copolymer of lignite-(ethene or substituted ethene monomer) having a central lignite network and at least one grafted side chain, R, having "m" repeating units of (1-phenylethylene), 1-methyl-1-(1-oxo-2-oxypro... | 08/12/1997 |
| 5644299 | Ultrasonic material level measurement Apparatus for indicating material level that includes a pair of ultrasonic transducers on opposed sides of a space for receiving the material at the level to be detected. A swept frequency oscillator is coupled to one of the transducers so that the transd... | 07/01/1997 |
| 5640330 | Method for analyzing pH titration data The present invention is directed to a method that fits experimental pH titration data to a model titration curve. The model is designed to accommodate any practical number of weak acids or bases (i.e., buffers) with single or multiple pKa 's i... | 06/17/1997 |
| 5635856 | High speed programmable macrocell with combined path for storage and combinatorial modes A high-speed programmable macrocell includes structure sufficient to implement a combined in the combinatorial storage signal path when the macrocell is operated in the combinatorial, and storage modes of operation. The macrocell includes, a master circui... | 06/03/1997 |
| 5627797 | Full and empty flag generator for synchronous FIFOS The invention describes an asynchronous state machine with a programmable tSKEW that is used to generate an empty and full flag in a synchronous FIFO buffer. The present invention reduces the delay associated in producing the full or empty flags from a ty... | 05/06/1997 |
| 5625233 | Thin film multi-layer oxygen diffusion barrier consisting of refractory metal, refractory metal aluminide, and aluminum oxide The use of a bi-layer thin film structure consisting of aluminum or aluminide on a refractory metal layer as a diffusion barrier to oxygen penetration at high temperatures for preventing the electrical and mechanical degradation of the refractory metal fo... | 04/29/1997 |
| 5623156 | Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit and structure for output drivers An integrated circuit device includes internal power supply buses VSSI, and VDDI, and output power supply buses VSSO, and VDDO. An output driver of the device has an active p-channel pull up, and n-channel pulld... | 04/22/1997 |
| 5552698 | Voltage supply system for IC chips A voltage supply system for use on an IC chip is provided. The system comprises a voltage shifting circuit for transferring an IC chip external input voltage signal range to an operating voltage range of an IC chip internal logic circuit, an IC chip inter... | 09/03/1996 |
| 5550085 | Method for making a buried contact A method of forming damage-free buried contacts in a semiconductor substrate without the trenches and pitted areas can be carried out by forming a silicon oxide layer as a gate dielectric layer on top of the substrate, forming a first polysilicon layer on... | 08/27/1996 |
