It's disappointing to see people claim that one company copied another company's IP, merely because they have similar products. For people who want to claim that Evolv invented temperature control, one serious problem they will need to overcome will be substantial prior art by other inventors. For example:
Int'l Patent Pub. No. WO2011050964 A1, claiming a priority date of 2009 and assigned to Philip Morris, describes "a heater in an electrically heated smoking system, the heater comprising one or more electrically conductive tracks on an electrically insulating substrate, the one or more electrically conductive tracks having temperature coefficient of resistance characteristics such that the one or more electrically conductive tracks can act as both a resistive heater and as a temperature sensor."
Int'l Patent Pub. No. WO2007066374 A1, claiming a priority date of 2005 and assigned to a European company, describes with reference to an e-cig "it is contemplated the possibility to use as electric resistance materials of any typology of resistive material with whatever characteristic and value (included the ohmic value), as for example . . . Positive Temperature Control"
U.S. Patent Pub. No. US20110265806, Allarcon was specifically cited by a patent examiner, with respect to pending patent claims by Evolv that could arguably cover temperature control, as prior art. See Office Action response dated 11/08/13 regarding U.S. Patent App. No. 13/661,184. The examiner stated that Allarcon "teaches a controller component for an electronic smoking device comprising a voltage sensor, current sensor, and a resistance sensor (first component) to detect an internal voltage, current, and/or resistance of the heating element . . . . This implicitly teaches that an actual measured power output is determined as power is simply equal to voltage times current. Alarcon teaches a controller and signal generator (second component) that is configured to control a power source that powers the heating element. The first component is used for heating element calibration. In other words, the second component controls and adjusts current and voltage level (power source) based on the actual measured power output to generate a selected power output."
In response to this rejection, Evolv notably amended their claims in that application to describe a power manager to regular the power level to the heating element "regardless of heating element parameters and a state of the power source".
Please note that I am not saying that Evolv does not have any patentable features with respect to their particular implementation of temperature control. In time, we may see what those specific improvements to the known art of temperature control are. The same can be said to YiHi's own particular implementation of temperature control. However, it is generally unwise to assume that merely being first to market is the same as first to invent, especially when it comes to broader arguments of what was invented.
MY SX Mini once I got the joules and temp correct is perfect minus the paint issue which I will have a new one Tuesday finally.
