...that Charles Goodyear performed some of his experiments on rubber while in debtor's prison? He was there so often he referred to it as his "hotel". Chronically in debt because of poor business sense and ill health, Goodyear depended on the generosity of friends and family. Even after he unlocked the secret to vulcanizing rubber, he was unable to improve his financial situation. When he died, his estate was $200,000 in debt.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8182245 | Inverter driven compressor operation method and compressor drive device A boot capacitor that functions as an operating power supply for a high-arm-side transistor provided in an inverter has to be charged prior to normal operation of a motor. This operation of charging the boot capacitor is performed at a carrier frequency that is lowe... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8182079 | Image forming method and image forming apparatus An image forming method includes the steps of: depositing an aggregating treatment liquid containing 10% or more and 90% or less of a water-soluble high-boiling-point organic solvent having an SP value of 30 or lower onto a recording medium; starting drying of the a... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8179431 | Compound eye photographing apparatus, control method therefor, and program A compound eye photographing apparatus including: a plurality of photographing units for photographing a subject at a plurality of photographing positions to obtain a plurality of images of the subject; a subject detection unit for detecting a predetermined subject ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8178926 | Thin film field effect transistor and display A thin film field effect transistor including, on a substrate, at least a gate electrode, a gate insulating layer, an active layer, a source electrode and a drain electrode, wherein an electric resistance layer is provided in electric connection between the active l... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8177312 | Monitor opening and closing mechanism A monitor opening and closing mechanism according to the present invention includes a first guide means guiding a monitor to rotate from home position to a first opened position, and a second guide means guiding the monitor to rotate from the first opened position t... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8173658 | Diazabicycylic aryl derivatives and their medical use This invention relates to novel diazabicyclic aryl derivatives, which are found to be cholinergic ligands at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and modulators of the monoamine receptors and transporters. Due to their pharmacological profile the compounds of the i... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8171506 | Optical-system driving device effecting switchover between objective lenses for achieving focal spots An optical-system driving device is achieved that can switch over between objective lenses and is space-saving, lightweight, and simply-configured. An optical-system driving device for recording information onto or playing it back from an optical storage medium, inc... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8170798 | Navigation system and operation guidance display method for use in this navigation system A navigation system according to the present invention includes a control device 1 equipped with an automatic operation management means 10 for, when acquiring an operation guidance display request which is generated by a user's manipulation of an inpu... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8169289 | Reactor A reactor is provided in which coil segments (5-1, 5-2) of each of first and second auxiliary winding elements (2-1, 2-2) is of a multilayered and aligned winding structure. The coil segments (5-1, 5-2) ... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8166771 | Refrigeration system A heat source side circuit (14) includes a gas-liquid separator (35) for the separation of refrigerant flowing therein from an expander (31) into liquid refrigerant and gas refrigerant and a cooling means (36, 45, 53, 55) for the cooling ... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8165392 | Image decoder and image decoding method for decoding color image signal, and image decoding method for performing decoding processing The present invention makes it possible to include, when encoding processing is applied to three color components using a 4:0:0 format, data for one picture in one access unit and makes it possible to set the same time information or the same set encoding modes amon... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8162488 | Projection display apparatus A projection display apparatus includes a light valve, a light source for producing light directed to the light valve, an integrator lens disposed in an optical path extending from the light source to the light valve and including a first lens array and a second len... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8158784 | Quinuclidine derivative useful in the preparation of mequitazine The invention relates to a 1-aza-bicyclo[2.2.2]oct-2-en-3-ylmethyl acetate of the formula (I), wherein said compound is useful as a synthesis intermediate for the production of mequitazine. ... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8156000 | Methods and systems for providing a targeted merchant funded rebate or rewards program The present invention relates to facilitating retail transactions between participating enrolled members and participating merchants who fund rebate offers targeted to enrolled members based upon a member's past account purchase transaction information, spending hab... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8154436 | Object detection An object is detected by generating a m-ary primary signal having an irregular sequence of states. Each transition results in the transmission of a pulse encoded according to the type of transition. Reflected pulses are processed with a delayed, reference version of... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8150204 | Noise reducer for video signals A noise reducer for a signal determines a direction of correlation for each picture element (pixel) by calculating sums of absolute differences between a block centered on the pixel and neighboring blocks centered on surrounding pixels and choosing the direction of ... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8149665 | Optical disc device Means (101a) for evaluating positional control deviation and means (102a) for outputting a corrective signal, this being a set of signals with kick and brake functions, to an actuator (10) on the basis of the evaluation result are ... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8148659 | Touch switch structure A touch switch structure is provided that can be preferably used for an automotive instrument panel and can securely prevent misjudgments and incorrect detections with respect to operations on the switch. For that purpose, the touch switch structure comprises a base... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8146953 | Pipe joint cover structure and pipe connection method To mount a partition cover (2) in a pipe joint (1), a nut (12) is screwed onto a joint body (11) to sandwich the partition cover (2) between the joint body and the nut. At this time, the partition cover is supported so as not to pr... | 04/03/2012 |
| 8145421 | Facility searching device, facility searching method, and vehicle-mounted navigation apparatus A facility searching device includes a road selecting unit for selecting an arbitrary road from road data stored in a storage unit, and a road facility searching unit for searching for facilities located along the road selected by the road selection unit. Therefore,... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8142982 | Lithographic printing plate precursor A lithographic printing plate precursor capable of being subjected to on-press development by supplying at least one of printing ink and dampening water and including a support, an image-recording layer and optionally an undercoat layer between the support and the i... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8139837 | Bone number determination apparatus and recording medium having stored therein program A body-of-sternum area representing the body of sternum of a subject is extracted from a three-dimensional image obtained by imaging the subject. Further, at least one rib area is extracted from the three-dimensional image. The rib number of each of the at least one... | 03/20/2012 |
| 8137433 | Method of regenerating metal, regenerated metal, material for lithographic printing plate bases, and lithographic printing plate A metal regeneration method including: a melting furnace cleaning step of melting pure aluminum with an aluminum content of 99.5% by weight or higher in a melting furnace to clean the inside of the melting furnace; and a metal regeneration step of melting waste lith... | 03/20/2012 |
| 8132902 | Inkjet recording apparatus An inkjet recording apparatus includes: a recording head including an introduction section, a discharge section and nozzles; a first liquid chamber connected to the introduction section; a second liquid chamber connected to the discharge section; a first buffer tank... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8124079 | Anti-IGF-IR antibodies and uses thereof The present invention relates to novel antibodies capable of binding specifically to the human insulin-like growth factor I receptor IGF-IR and/or capable of specifically inhibiting the tyrosine kinase activity of said IGF-IR, especially monoclonal antibodies of mur... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8116983 | Device for quantitative analysis of a drug or metabolite profile A device, in particular a sample preparation device for the quantitative analysis of a drug and/or metabolite profile in a biological sample, which includes an insert for such a device being impregnated with at least one internal standard, to the internal standard i... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8114033 | Sleep determination apparatus A sleep determination apparatus capable of detecting wakefulness of a subject before entering a hypnagogic state with high accuracy is provided. When the subject is not yet in the hypnagogic state, it is determined that the subject is asleep when a detected b... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8110366 | Method for evaluating cell populations The invention describes specific sialylated structures present on human stem cells and cell populations derived thereof. The invention is especially directed to methods to control the status of stem cells by observing changes in sialylation of the cells; and control... | 02/07/2012 |
| 8106112 | Biodegradable resin composition The invention relates to a biodegradable resin composition containing a biodegradable resin, a plasticizer and a crystal nucleus agent, the plasticizer being a compound containing two or more ester groups in the molecule thereof, wherein at least one alcohol compone... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8105957 | Method of producing semiconductor device Disclosed is a producing method of a semiconductor device comprising a first step of supplying a first reactant to a substrate to cause a ligand-exchange reaction between a ligand of the first reactant and a ligand as a reactive site existing on a surface of the sub... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8101748 | Fluorinated catharanthine derivatives, their preparation and their utilisation as dimeric alkaloid precursors The fluorinated derivatives of catharanthine according to the invention respond to the general formula I: in which: the dotted line expresses the possibility of the presence of a double bo... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8098734 | Video encoder, video decoder, video encoding method, video decoding method, and video encoding and decoding system A method and a video decoder for decoding an encoded bitstream of video data in a picture encoding and decoding system are disclosed. The video decoder includes a motion compensation unit for calculating a position for a sample image portion using an encoded bitstre... | 01/17/2012 |
| 8094955 | Image reducing apparatus and reduced image generating method In a case where a padded orthogonally transformed block obtained by orthogonally transforming a padded image block of 8×8 pixels to which padding data has been added has been recorded as compressed image data, the padded orthogonally transformed block is subjected ... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8078074 | Image forming apparatus and image forming method An image forming apparatus has: an intermediate transfer body which carries an image; a transfer mechanism which transfers the image carried on the intermediate transfer body, onto a transfer surface of a recording medium fixed to a surface of a rotating body; and a... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8076449 | Therapeutic agents of colivelin for neurodegenerative diseases The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment and/or prevention of a neurodegenerative disease, comprising the following polypeptide shown in any of (a) to (c): (a) a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence represented by Ser... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8074266 | Memory card, data exchange system, and data exchange method By enabling to write information which is readable only by an IC card owner on an IC card without inputting a PIN and to authenticate a creator of the written information and prevent falsification, it is guaranteed that data written on the IC card can be read only b... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8072647 | Color conversion apparatus and method A color conversion apparatus receives first image data including first red-green-blue color data in which the possible values of the red, green, and blue components extend beyond the range from 0% to 100%. The first color data are analyzed into first hue region data... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8067889 | Stacked display medium A display medium including a layered structure that comprises two or more stacked display elements that each are provided, on or above a flexible substrate, with a pixel portion and lead line(s) for electrically connecting the pixel portion to outside of the pixel p... | 11/29/2011 |
| 8065183 | Methods and systems for providing a merchant funded rebate or rewards program The present invention relates to facilitating retail transactions between registered members and selected merchants who fund rebates on the transactions between themselves and the registered members and the calculation of a rebate or reward in correlation with a qua... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8063156 | Composition containing cycloaliphatic epoxide, polyol oligomer, and curing catalyst A liquid thermosetting epoxy resin composition contains a base resin in combination with a curing agent and a curing accelerator or with a curing catalyst. The base resin includes a cycloaliphatic epoxy compound having at least one alicyclic skeleton and two or more... | 11/22/2011 |