Bizarre Patents
Combination Beverage Container and Spittoon
A combination beverage container and spittoon includes a bottom portion including outer wall and a first inner wall defining a spittoon space.
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7929120 | Apparatus for controlling optical fringe generation member based on detected optical fringe and method therefor An optical fringe generation member control apparatus is provided. The control apparatus includes a detection unit that is configured to detect an optical fringe. Further, the control apparatus includes a control unit that is configured to control operation of a mem... | 04/19/2011 |
| 7884924 | Residual stress measuring method and system A residual stress measuring method capable of measuring residual stress of the surface of an object to be inspected rapidly in a non-destructive non-contact manner, as well as a residual stress measuring system having such characteristics and being high in portabili... | 02/08/2011 |
| 7755746 | Device for testing a test object, in particular a tire, by means of a non-destructive measuring method A non-destructive tire testing device has at least one measuring head, a positioning means for moving the measuring head between a park position (I) and a measuring position (II), a pressure chamber in which the test object can be subjected to a prescribed pressure,... | 07/13/2010 |
| 7728958 | Condition assessment method for a structure including a semiconductor material An improved condition testing system and method includes a structure including a semiconductor material with a target portion and a second portion. The target portion has a first feature when at least one of the following occurs: an external force is received by the... | 06/01/2010 |
| 7697121 | Sensing system having wavelength reflectors that receive modulated light signals The sensing system includes a plurality of modulators that are each configured to modulate a different light signal. The sensing system also includes optical pathways that transport the modulated light signals to one or more wavelength reflectors. Each wavelength re... | 04/13/2010 |
| 7636151 | System and method for providing residual stress test structures The invention comprises systems and methods determining residual stress such as that found in interferometric modulators. In one example, a test unit can be configured to indicate residual stress in a film by interferometrically modulating light indicative of an ave... | 12/22/2009 |
| 7583368 | Method of enhancing measurement of stress in glass A detection system for measuring glass that has been placed under strain and the resulting stress lines in the glass has a light source of individual elements configured to create a light distribution. The light distribution has a discontinuity which enhances the vi... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7576840 | Brillouin spectral measuring method and Brillouin spectral measuring apparatus The present invention relates to a Brillouin spectrum measuring method and measuring apparatus that have a structure for more accurately measuring the parameters of Brillouin spectra at predetermined sections of an optical fiber. The measuring method comprises an op... | 08/18/2009 |
| 7564540 | Fibre optic sensor method and apparatus This invention uses an interferometric fiber optic sensor, particularly a Sagnac or Michelson interferometer, in a first fiber to monitor a sensing length of the first fiber and to detect disturbances. Signals indicating disturbances are classified as being of inter... | 07/21/2009 |
| 7538860 | System and method for determination of the reflection wavelength of multiple low-reflectivity bragg gratings in a sensing optical fiber A system and method for determining a reflection wavelength of multiple Bragg gratings in a sensing optical fiber comprise: (1) a source laser; (2) an optical detector configured to detect a reflected signal from the sensing optical fiber; (3) a plurality of frequen... | 05/26/2009 |
| 7538859 | Methods and systems for monitoring and obtaining information of at least one portion of a sample using conformal laser therapy procedures, and providing electromagnetic radiation thereto In one exemplary embodiment of the present invention, method and system can be provided for obtaining information associated with at least one portion of a sample. For example, a temperature change can be caused in the portion of the sample. At least one first elect... | 05/26/2009 |
| 7499151 | Distributed Brillouin sensor system based on DFB lasers using offset locking A distributed Brillouin sensor system is provided. The system has two distributed feedback (DFB) lasers, which are locked at the Brillouin frequency of the optical fiber through offset locking method by coupler splitting into two parts. The split parts are sent to t... | 03/03/2009 |
| 7477362 | Moiré interferometric strain sensor A moiré interferometric strain sensor for detecting strain on a specimen, a diffraction grating being on the specimen, the strain sensor including an array of a plurality of microlenses for receiving at least one reflected beam of at least one incident beam upon th... | 01/13/2009 |
| 7433051 | Determination of lithography misalignment based on curvature and stress mapping data of substrates Provided are methods to be carried out prior to, while, and/or after performing a photolithographic process to a wafer that involve wafer misalignment assessment. The method involves obtaining curvature and/or deformation information of a surface of the wafer over a... | 10/07/2008 |
| 7423762 | Rugged fabry-perot pressure sensor A pressure sensor (100) and system for measuring pressure changes, especially in harsh environments, is described. The pressure sensor has a Fabry-Perot optical cavity formed within a tube (115) with a partial reflective mirror (130) provided by... | 09/09/2008 |
| 7403270 | Method for whole field thin film stress evaluation A novel method for whole field thin film stress evaluation is provided. Through the provided method, the whole filed thin film stress distribution for an optical thin film would be developed with a commercial interferometer, so that a whole field evaluation for the ... | 07/22/2008 |
| 7377181 | In-situ large area optical strain measurement using an encoded dot pattern A method of measuring strain in a test specimen comprises the steps of placing a pattern of marks on a surface of the test specimen, wherein the pattern of marks includes a plurality of target marks and a plurality of sets of coded marks, using the sets of coded mar... | 05/27/2008 |
| 7369251 | Full-field optical measurements of surface properties of panels, substrates and wafers Techniques and systems for using optical interferometers to obtain full-field optical measurements of surfaces, such as surfaces of flat panels, patterned surfaces of wafers and substrates. Applications of various shearing interferometers for measuring surfaces are ... | 05/06/2008 |
| 7360410 | Procedure and device for testing tires A procedure serves for the testing of tires by means of a testing system. The testing system includes a memory in which geometric data (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) of the tire (7) are stored, and at least one probe (8) for testing the tire (7) surf... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7357570 | Method and device for contactless temperature monitoring and temperature adjustment A method and device for determining the temperature of a sample, wherein a probing light beam is directed onto the sample whereby at least two partial beams of the probing light pass through paths of different lengths inside the sample by backscattering or reflectin... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7359067 | Optical displacement sensor comprising a wavelength-tunable optical source An optical displacement sensor is disclosed that provides a optical displacement sensor that includes a optically-resonant cavity tuned to an operating wavelength without some of the disadvantages for doing so in the prior art. An embodiment of the present invention... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7355723 | Apparatus comprising a high-signal-to-noise displacement sensor and method therefore An optical displacement sensor is disclosed that provides a high signal-to-noise ratio output signal without some of the disadvantages for doing so in the prior art. An embodiment of the present invention directs a light beam toward a Fabry-Perot interferometer and ... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7355684 | Interferometric signal conditioner for measurement of the absolute length of gaps in a fiber optic Fabry-Perot interferometer A method and apparatus for quantitatively measuring the distance of an unknown variable gap is disclosed. Light is provided to two Fabry-Perot interferometers arranged in a series, one spanning the unknown gap and the other spanning a controllably variable gap. Mean... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7355718 | Pressure sensor having two materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion configured to reduce temperature dependence An interferometer pressure sensor includes a reflective film configured to change a position thereof responsive to a pressure change and an interferometer element configured to detect the position change of the reflective film. A holder is configured to hold the ref... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7347101 | Measuring strain in a structure using a sensor having an electromagnetic resonator The system (10) comprises a sensor (18) 90×90×90×30 mm as an electromagnetic microwave cavity (20) with a coupler (22) with a wire (40) and an antenna (42). Cavity (20) produces a response signal (26) in res... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7348786 | Probe module for testing chips with electrical and optical input/output interconnects, methods of use, and methods of fabrication Probe modules, methods of use of probe modules, and methods of preparing probe modules, are disclosed. A representative embodiment of a probe module, among others, includes a redistribution substrate and a probe substrate interfaced with the redistribution substrate... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7332728 | Tamper-proof container A system and method for detecting radiation from a source in a container is disclosed. A continuous optical fiber path is disposed in a medium which is part of or associated with a container and which encloses the volumetric space of the container. The optical fiber... | 02/19/2008 |
| 7327909 | Method for tuning a fiber optic component A tunable fiber optic component providing environmental isolation, thermal tuning, and mechanical tuning and a method of tuning a fiber optic component using application of substantially simultaneous varying of temperature and mechanical strain is disclosed. A metho... | 02/05/2008 |
| 7327467 | Phase measuring method and apparatus for measuring characterization of optical thin films A phase measuring apparatus for measuring phase characteristics of a film applied onto an object to be measured includes a shearing interference system for providing incident light onto the object or light reflected on the object with shearing interference, a detect... | 02/05/2008 |
| 7324665 | Method of multi-resolution adaptive correlation processing A method of multi-resolution adaptive correlation processing of images, such as seeded fluid flow images, to efficiently increase the spatial resolution and dynamic range of detecting particle image displacements in the images. The technique takes full advantage of ... | 01/29/2008 |
| 7317538 | Optical two-dimensional velocity and/or movement detector In an optical movement information detector, light emitted from a laser diode (1) is split into a first beam (10), a second beam (11) and a third beam (12) by beam splitters (2a, 2b). The first, second and thir... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7312877 | Method and apparatus for enhanced resolution of high spatial frequency components of images using standing wave beams in non-interferometric and interferometric microscopy A method of measuring properties of a substrate, the method involving: illuminating a spot on the substrate with a standing wave measurement beam to generate a return measurement beam, the standing wave measurement beam characterized by a standing wave pattern; gene... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7308831 | Interface device and method for interfacing instruments to vascular access simulation systems An interface device and method for interfacing instruments to a vascular access simulation system serve to interface peripherals in the form of mock or actual medical instruments to the simulation system to enable simulation of medical procedures. The interface devi... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7310139 | Evaluation method and device for gel state or sol-gel state change of object A system and method for evaluating a material body by a scattered light observation system which observes a gel state or a gel-formable sol state material body illuminated with a coherent light through a two dimensional image recognizing means, including measuring a... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7295325 | Time-resolved measurement technique using radiation pulses In one embodiment, a probe pulse is first stretched into a pulse of longer duration. The probe pulse comprises a plurality of wavelength components in a bandwidth, so that each temporal portion of the converted pulse corresponds to and comprises one of the wavelengt... | 11/13/2007 |
| 7283216 | Distributed fiber sensor based on spontaneous brilluoin scattering A distributed fiber sensor based on spontaneous Brillouin scattering uses a single-frequency fiber laser as a source and a cw Brillouin fiber ring laser as an OLO to optically shift the frequency of the OLO to set the Brillouin/OLO beat frequency within the bandwidt... | 10/16/2007 |
| 7280187 | Method for resolving phase in electronic speckle interferometry The invention is a method of determining the phase difference between two interferometric images. The method includes the steps of measuring the intensities of the two beam arms, and measuring the intensities of the interfering beam arms at two different times (two ... | 10/09/2007 |
| 7268860 | Color Moiré interferometry Color-coding is used to simplify the prior art floating-element Moiré shear-stress sensor. The use of color-coding allows conversion of the Moiré sensor into a 2-D area array sensor, provides a simplified method that saves costs associated with data acquisition an... | 09/11/2007 |
| 7259864 | Optical underwater acoustic sensor An acoustic sensor used in underwater applications. The sensor includes a reflective material adhered to a structure, such as an outer submarine hull or any marine vessel hull. A laser interferometer is placed on the side of the structure with the reflective materia... | 08/21/2007 |
| 7253908 | Non-destructive inspection using laser profiling and associated method A system for non-destructive inspection using laser profiling and an associated method are provided. The system includes a support surface, and at least one laser carried by the support surface and directed towards the workpiece at an oblique angle such that at leas... | 08/07/2007 |
