The very first thing that we need to keep in mind is that Eclypse had the very first original thought in the entire universe. All subsequent thoughts were simply permutations of his original thought.. and he deserves credit for everything. From toilet paper to rubber tires.. it's all Eclypse.. all the time. Thank you Eclypse. We are forever in your debt. We should all send you the money that we owe you so you don't have to play Mr. Mom all day while your wife goes out and works.
Now, onto the topic at hand. The concept of partial pressure being generated on the "backside" of the fluid reservoir is neither new or unique. It was discussed many, many months ago.. long before Eclypse or I were even members of the forum. And, of course, for many of us it was discussed back in science class when we were playing with pipettes. 40 years ago.
None the less. Mods like the original "straw mod" made attempts to address this issue. Not only did they allow more liquid to be pulled from the cartridge, they also helped with refilling since they vented the air bubble trapped at the bottom of the cartridge. I don't know or remember who came up with the original straw mod.. but absentee kudos are in order.
Partial pressure (vacuum) on the back side of the fluid became a more pronounced issue when modders started playing with reservoir and plug configurations. The cartridge would vape well for a little bit, the bridge would pull liquid out of the cartridge and a vacuum would be generated on the "back side" of the liquid reservoir pool. Finally the vacuum force would meet or exceed the film tension and capillary forces (wicking) and the flow would stop. Not exactly rocket science.
I machined the basic guts of this mod back in November of 2009.. albeit for a different purpose. I
personally observed the magnitude of the vacuum effect here:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/cartridge-mods/46916-reservoir-straw-plug-mod-rsp-mod-37.html
And that's what got me thinking about a controlled release of the vacuum in order to create a feeding mechanism. I already had the base unit designed and built, so all I had to do was come up with the "ball bearing burper". Also not rocket science. As with many things, the building and empirical analysis was substantially more difficult than having the "initial thought".
Since I design multi-million dollar equipment for a living... and have a crapload of patents, I guess I don't consider this to be that big of a thing. *shrug*
For others it would appear that maybe this constitutes the best idea that they ever had.. or will ever have in their entire life. And they're pretty p*ssed that they didn't act on it. Or didn't/don't have the ability to act on it.
How sad.