Oh, patents! More Systems

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Jessica Matthews, the young Nigerian-American, Harvard-educated, star entrepreneur, scientist and venture capitalist, has done it again! 

After Soccket, the Uncharted Play football that harvests kinetic energy transforming it to electricity, and Pulse, the Uncharted Play jump-ropes that do likewise, engaging girls in the production of electricity too, in comes More Systems!

More is an acronym that stands for Motion-based, Off-grid, Renewable, Energy.

More Systems raise the bar on harvesting even more motion-based energy, from multiple power generating and power harvesting sources, and allowing it to be wirelessly distributed, and dynamically allocated to multiple power drawing and requesting devices. More Systems includes, for example. one or more devices that harvest and transform ambient kinetic energy in a variety of locations such as the gym, a playground, a subway turnstile, a road or sidewalk, coupled with a proprietary CPU connected to a wireless network that distributes the collected energy to multiple power drawing and requesting devices such as mobile phones, tablets, computers or watches, appliances, lamps, street or residential lighting. Thus, the More Systems invention might effectively replace a conventional power grid, especially where it is too expensive to implement, or in locations that are too remote.

In sum, More Systems represent another giant step in Matthews’ mission to “democratize energy access worldwide”. As a reminder, the World Bank indicates that 1.06 billion people in the world have no access to electricity, a situation that significantly impacts poverty, and that further defeats many mobile technology initiatives in developing countries.  

More Systems is disclosed in the recently published patent application US2017025857 titled Wireless Mesh Energy Network. The abstract of the More Systems invention is included below.

An energy distribution system is provided with a plurality of energy harvesting devices and a plurality of power draining devices in a wireless mesh energy network. One or more of the energy harvesting devices wirelessly transmits electrical energy to one or more of the power draining devices to power the power draining devices. The energy harvesting devices have harvesting mechanisms that harness and converts kinetic energy of motion, mechanical energy or other forms of energy from other sources into electrical energy. The power draining devices are configured to communicate a signal requesting for power and power data to the energy harvesting devices. The energy harvesting devices utilize the power data to prioritize which power draining devices will wirelessly receive electrical energy. This system would decrease or eliminate the need for attachment to the energy grid.

References
Jessica Matthews - CEO Uncharted Play
http://www.unchartedplay.com/team
Jessica O. Matthews - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_O._Matthews
Matthews and Silverman - 2012 Scientists of the Year - Harvard Gazette
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/03/matthews-silverman-are-scientists-of-the-year/
Herrmann, F, (Jan 5, 2017) Oh, patents! Energy-generating soccer ball. Blog Patents on the soles of your shoes. 

Herrmann, F. (April 9, 2017) Un ballon de foot pas comme les autres! Blog Billets Techniques TradLex

International Energy Agency

https://www.iea.org/topics/energypoverty/

More – Motion-based Off-grid Renewable Energy

http://u-more.co/

Unchartered Play

http://www.unchartedplay.com/tech

World Bank - Energy

http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/energy

Oh, patents! PIWAPEE° sustainable diapers

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Disposable diapers are unquestionably practical! However, in a green perspective, they amount to 1 ton of waste per child, contributing to the volume of landfills and resulting emissions of greenhouse gases.

It is this environmental concern that prompted PIWAPEE°, an infant hygiene company, to develop panty-type sustainable diapers, with a patented moisture barrier, for infants 0 to 3 years of age. The PIWAPEE° panty type sustainable diaper consists of an outer panty type garment, including the special patented moisture barrier system and an inner 100 % cotton absorbent pad which attaches to the inside of the panty garment.

The patented moisture barrier aims to resolve problems with gusset-type moisture barriers, which tend to leak, and to simplify the manufacturing process which just consists of adding an extra protection strip, termed a “hammock”, running from the front waistline opening to the back waistline opening, and slightly offset from the outer edge of the outer garment, and then attaching it to the inside of the outer garment with two strategically positioned seams running the full longitudinal length of each side of the garment.  The offset seams create two small wings that prevent leaking, and retain moisture. An elastic, added to the outer edge of the wings, shortens the wings slightly, allowing them to wrap snugly around the infants’ thighs.

This patented moisture barrier is also added to swimsuits and swim trunks for water play and initiation to swimming activities for small infants. The PIWAPEE° line of products also includes two green-certified detergents for sanitizing and washing these sustainable panty-type diapers and absorbent pads. The company also estimates that a family’s diaper budget is reduced by one half when resorting to these types of sustainable products.

The company, founded in 2007, also boasts fair trade and equitable labor practices, setting up partnerships in Indonesia and Turkey where the cotton is sourced, and guaranteeing a payroll that is 20% higher than local minimum wages, with an 8-hour work day, and no child labor.  

Below the English abstract of French patent FR2949670, titled Article vestimentaire à barriers d’étanchéité (in English, Panty-type garment with moisture barrier) is included with a patent drawing as well as some images of the marketed products. 


Abstract FR2949670

The article (1) has a main panties body (2) including a front portion and a rear portion that are connected together by a crotch portion, and provided with an impermeable outer layer and an inner layer. A protective band (3) i.e. hammock, is extended longitudinally between belt opening edges of the front and rear portions of the body. The band is integrated to the body by longitudinal sewing lines (4) extended along longitudinal edges (31) of the band. Each line is spaced from one of the longitudinal edges to form a wing (33) that forms a sealing barrier. The inner layer is made of permeable material i.e. cotton fiber.

------

More at: www.piwapee.com