Evolv patented "wattage" in ecigs, what does that mean for other USA companies like ProVape?

[dr g]

Just went back over and re-read the patent... You are right they don't specify resistance. The whole thing is worded very vaguely. I have thoughts about that, but more power to them. I've been around here long enough to know that the patent is almost definitely just to keep PITA cloners off his lawn.

Current sensing is the most accurate way to measure resistance anyway, I believe. Well it's more accurate than voltage.

Given that the patent was filed before cloners did their thing ... I wonder.

 

[classwife]

Moved to Variable Voltage APV Discussion from APV Discussion

 

[six]

One patentholder's anecdotes aren't probative of anything.

LOL. I know people like you in real life. You're so invested in the fact you said something and you just can't be wrong... even though you really are... that you'll just pick the scab pick the scab pick the scab... Well. I wish in real life I had a blocked user list like I do here.

 

[Bad Ninja]

Read the patent. It's a patent on the method, not the concept. You can't patent a concept.
You may be confused by what I'm saying. You can in fact patent the only way to do something, and that's what Evolv did.

Evolv got a patent on THEIR proprietary way of doing something.
Which is all they can do. Patents protect your property. They do no grant ownership of a concept.

 

[retird]

Evolv got a patent on THEIR proprietary way of doing something.
Which is all they can do. Patents protect your property. They do no grant ownership of a concept.

I'm certainly not a patent attorney thus I really can't comment on just what is protected by Evolv's patent. I assume you have the qualifications to legally interpret Evolv's patent and have read every word of the patent and have applied the patent laws in order to properly define the scope of the patent.

From my lay perspective copyrights protect expression and patents protects inventions, and neither protect ideas. In both cases the idea is the first critical step, but without some identifiable embodiment of the idea there can be no intellectual property protection obtained and no exclusive rights will flow unto you. This does not mean that you should give up when you only have an idea, but it does mean that you will need to proceed to flesh out your idea to the point where it is concrete enough to be more than what the law would call a “mere idea.” The moral of the story is that ideas alone cannot be protected, so you need to think in terms of invention. Inventions can be patented. You just have to get from idea to invention. From my history of following Evolv's progress they were the first to design and use power regulation incorporated in an e-cigarette thus, as I see it, invented the power regulated e-cigarette.

 

[Rossum]

From my history of following Evolv's progress they were the first to design and use power regulation incorporated in an e-cigarette thus, as I see it, invented the power regulated e-cigarette.

Yup, it seems pretty clear that they did.

Still, if I were one of their competitors, I'd be asking my lawyers whether the patent protecting that invention is likely hold up to a court challenge, specifically one that maintains that controlling power in this way is not novel; that it is in fact an obvious solution to the deficiencies of conventional e-cigs that Evolv lists in their patent. Variable wattage has been done for decades in certain applications (such as industrial furnaces) and for exactly the same reasons that Evolv used it in the Darwin and subsequent products -- to put a known, repeatable amount of heat into the 'work' despite the heating elements not always having the same resistance. As far as I can see, the only thing novel here is the application of this long-established method to e-cigs. The method itself is not novel. The examiners may not have been aware that this method existed previously because those who implemented it in the past for other applications thought it was too dang obvious to file a patent application.

 

[dr g]

Evolv got a patent on THEIR proprietary way of doing something.
Which is all they can do. Patents protect your property. They do no grant ownership of a concept.

Again, please read the patent. They did not patent the concept, they patented the method of achieving it, which happens to be the only known method.

Yup, it seems pretty clear that they did.

Still, if I were one of their competitors, I'd be asking my lawyers whether the patent protecting that invention is likely hold up to a court challenge, specifically one that maintains that controlling power in this way is not novel; that it is in fact an obvious solution to the deficiencies of conventional e-cigs that Evolv lists in their patent. Variable wattage has been done for decades in certain applications (such as industrial furnaces) and for exactly the same reasons that Evolv used it in the Darwin and subsequent products -- to put a known, repeatable amount of heat into the 'work' despite the heating elements not always having the same resistance. As far as I can see, the only thing novel here is the application of this long-established method to e-cigs. The method itself is not novel. The examiners may not have been aware that this method existed previously because those who implemented it in the past for other applications thought it was too dang obvious to file a patent application.

Even if it were patented decades ago, by now the patents would be expired.The novel application IS patentable, and is kind of the point of patents. Patents can also build on other patents.

I disagree that the reason is the same, the ecigarette is a consumer device and the point isn't the same any more than the point of a furnace is the same as the point of an ecigarette.