Vroom! At CES 2025 - Aptera EV solar panel design

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The layout of solar panels on the Aptera EV longitudinal axis is a patented invention. The US design patent, USD939430S1, titled Solar panel layout on a vehicle, was granted on December 28th, 2021. The patent was awarded to four inventors: Jason Hill (US), Steve Fambro (US), Chris Anthony (US), and Darren McKeage (US). The patent was assigned to Aptera Motors Corp.

As a reminder, a US design patent only covers the ornamental aspects of an invention, or how the invention looks. How an invention works, and/or how the invention is produced, are aspects of an invention covered in US utility patents. Thus, the present design patent only covers how the panels look on top of the Aptera EV, rather than how they work, or how they are manufactured to capture energy on the roof, front and rear car hood. Only a utility patent covers how the captured solar energy is designed to provide users with a minimum quantity of free power each day.

Below, the patent Figure 1 depicts a plan view of the solar panel layout, on the Aptera EV longitudinal axis, together with a top view image of the soon-to-be-launched Aptera EV.

Reference

Aptera (website)

https://aptera.us/

USPTO MPEP – Chapt. 1502-01 – Distinction between design and utility patent.
https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1502.html

Vroom! At CES 2025 – Aptera grid-free EV

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Still hesitant about getting an electric vehicle (EV)? Afraid to run out of charge in the middle of your trip? In comes Aptera's multi-patented, aerodynamic, grid-free, solar-powered EV. With a 700kw, patented, solar-paneling system, built into the aerodynamic roof, front and rear hood of the car, drivers get 40 miles of free solar power, each day, just from driving. Otherwise, the car has a 400-mile range, on a full charge from the grid, with a built-in lightning-fast charger.

The trade-off for such a solar gem? The Aptera is a two-seater with three wheels.

The US design patent, USD633821S, titled Aerodynamic vehicle, was awarded on March 8th, 2011 to a group of nine American and Canadian inventors: Jason Hill (US); Tom Reichenbach, (US); Kurt Danielson, (US); Larry Thomas (US); Miles Wheeler (US); Marques McCammon, (US); Paul Wilbur (US); Nathan Armstrong, (CA) and Dean Bartolomucci,(US).

Below the patent Figure 1, showing a right perspective view of the Aptera solar-powered car, together with an image of the gullwing-door Aptera. On hold since 2019, due to the pandemic, the USD 40,000 Aptera is scheduled to enter the market later this year.

Reference

Aptera (website)

https://aptera.us/ 

Oh, patents ! At CES 2025 - Envision AR smart binoculars

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

After re-inventing telescopes, Unistellar, a French company located in Marseille, has re-invented binoculars, earning a CES 2025* Innovation Honoree Award, in the Extended Reality (XR) technology category. The new Unistellar smart binoculars combine Augmented Reality (AR) and premium optics into a device called Envision, for use during daytime exploring and nighttime skygazing. 

The AR precision orientation system superimposes metadata onto a natural image, viewed with the Envision smart binoculars. For example, the AR system will superimpose the digital names of all the peaks of a mountain range on a landscape visualized during day time, and will mark all the points of a constellation on a night sky, visualized through the Envision binoculars. 

Thus, a binocular user no longer has to search for, and identify, points of interest on a landscape, using a map, a compass or an app in addition to binoculars. Likewise, the user no longer needs to use a constellations app to try and find Andromeda, Sagittarius or Pegasus in the night sky. The AR precision orientation system will superimpose digital information onto a visualized night sky, or will superimpose digital information on a visualized landscape, just using Envision AR smart binoculars. 

The AR Envision system also has an ingenious bookmarking system, so that once the user identifies a landmark of interest, the localized landmark can be bookmarked. In turn,  the Envision ARA binoculars might be passed onto a friend, who will be able to find the landmark in the vastness of a landscape, using the superimposed digital bookmark. 

The binoculars are connected to a mobile device, equipped with an app, for access to the databases containing the digital metadata. The user can search for a particular constellation by name, so that the metadata will appear on the night sky visualized with the Envision AR binoculars. Or the user can call up metadata with a button on the Envision AR binoculars to identify what is being visualized on the night sky, alternatively to make sense of panoramic scenery during daytime exploration. 

Envision AR smart binoculars are not only intended to greatly enhance the experience of novice astronomers and outdoor explorers, making it easy to identify and find stars or landmarks. Unistellar has also partnered with Nikon for premium optics, so that the binoculars are also intented for more seasoned users. 

The use of AR to transform binoculars into smart binoculars is a patented invention. The US patent application US20210405341A1, titled Method for producing a digital image, associated computer program and optical system, was filed on September 7th, 2021, by Unistellar. The four inventors on record are: Arnaud Malvache, Antonin Borot, Benjamin Lefaudeux and Laurent Marfisi.  

The patent abstract is included below, together with an image depicting superimposed digital data on a natural view of the moon.  The superimposed digital data identifies the Moon, and indicates the Sea of Serenity on the moon. This image, and the one above, were both extracted from a Nikon+Unistellar Youtube video, advertising for the Envision AR smart binoculars.  

The invention relates to an optical system for restoring a natural image combined with a digital image, in order to characterise and highlight the objects represented on the natural image. The optical system includes an objective lens, an eyepiece, a semi-reflective plate, a processing unit, capturing means and restoring means. The invention also relates to a method for producing such a digital image.

[Abstract US20210405341A1]

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Note

*The largest Computer Electronic Show, CES 2025 will run January 7-10 in Las Vegas California.  

References

CES 2025

https://www.ces.tech/

Nikon x Unistellar (YouTube Video)

https://youtu.be/N5HU1rAB__0

Unistellar (website)

https://www.unistellar.com/

Happy 2025!

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

2025 SmileBox

Oh, patents! Cartier's Promenade d'une panthère watch

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Cartier’s Promenade d’une panthère timepiece is a watchmaking masterpiece. The timepiece was presented at the 2012 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH). A private, invitation-only, luxury watch event, previously held in Geneva, Switzerland, intended for leading retailers, professional watchmakers, journalists, and VIP watch collectors.* 

In a nutshell, the patented masterpiece consists in translating the oscillating weight, or rotor, of a self-winding watch, to Cartier’s iconic panther, pivoting on a ball bearing, so that it is the panther that oscillates, on top of the clockwork, with every movement of the user’s wrist. Animating oscillations that make it look like the panther is prowling around the clock. 

The result is a playful tour de force, embodied in a high jewelry timepiece. The outer oscillating weight is attached to a gold case, bezel-set with 400 brilliant-cut diamonds for a total of 6.18 carats. The panther figurine is also set with 208 brilliant-cut diamonds, totaling 0.42 carats, and black lacquer spots. The alligator leather strap has an adjustable folding buckle, set with 43 brilliant-cut diamonds, totaling 0.42 carats.

Below, a short YouTube video showing the oscillating weight complication, functioning as a (prowling) panther.

Cartier’s Promenade d’une panthère timepiece was granted the European patent, EP2737372B1, titled: Pivoted oscillating weight on the outside of a clockwork and clockwork provided with such an oscillating weight. The patent was awarded on April 9th, 2019, to Carole Kasapi and Laurent Dechaumont, and assigned to Cartier International AG, in Switzerland.

Below, the patent Figure 1, and a sample marketed model of the Cartier Promenade d’une panthère timepiece, embodying the invention. The patent Figure 1 shows the oscillating weight of the timepiece, translated to a 180-degree central part (in this embodiment, the panther) 7. The central (panther) part 7, attached to an annular frame 4, pivots on a ball bearing, at the periphery of a  cage 2, attached to the clockwork plate 3, without interfering with the visualization of the timepiece's hand movement. The central (panther) part 7, together with the annular frame 4, are screwed to an annular cage 1 with screws 5. The central (panther) part  7, forms a 180-degree unbalanced section, augmented by the unbalanced weight of the attached annular frame 4, which has apertures 6, on its lighter 180-degree arc, opposite the central (panther) part 7.  

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Note: SIHH (in English, International Watchmaker and High Jewelry Trade Show). The SIHH tradeshow, previously held annually at the Palexpo Convention Center in Geneva, Switzerland, is now replaced by the Watches and Wonders Geneva annual tradeshow.

References
Cartier (website)
https://www.cartier.com/en-us/home
Watches and Wonders Geneva
https://www.watchesandwonders.com/en/geneva-2024/event

Interlude - Amy Sherald at the SFMOMA

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

From November 16th, 2024, to March 9th, 2025, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is hosting the largest-ever collection of Amy Sherald oil-on-canvas paintings. The exhibit, titled Amy Sherald: American Sublime, displays nearly 50 portraits, from 2007 to 2024, of mostly everyday black Americans, consistent with her desire to engage viewers in a more complex understanding of American identity. Best known for her 2018 portrait of Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, which usually hangs at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute, Amy Sherald directly addresses the notorious absence of black men, women, and children, in American portraiture. Her portraits are radiant, and only temporal in the way her subjects are dressed and positioned to tell a story.

A video of her work, included in the exhibit, shows the elaborate photoshoots and staging of her portraits, using actors. For example, the show’s poster--Any Sherald’s 2022 painting For love and for country, depicting two queer sailors kissing-- is directly reminiscent of the world-famous (1945) photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt, titled V-J Day in Times Square. A portrait where, in fact, the 1945 kissing subjects were simply swapped and replaced by the two kissing queer black men, on a brilliant turquoise background. In Any Sherald's take, the two subjects, in the exact same position, are also completely oblivious of the world, as they claim their love. Love also, in 2022, of a more tolerant, red, white and blue country, shown with the blue striped shirt, red bandana and white sailor hat.

Amy Sherald identifies with a tradition of American realism represented by Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. But her realism celebrates the sublime individual, vibrantly cloaked. Plus, Amy Sherald quotes extensively from such black literary geniuses as Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison for the titles* complementing her portraits. For example, from Morrison’s Beloved, she titles two of her 2015 portraits: Freeing herself was one thing, taking ownership of that freed self was another and Fact was she knew more about them than she knew about herself, having never had the map to discover what she was like.

After the San Francisco MOMA, the show moves on to the Whitney Museum, in New York City. 

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*Portrait titles from top to bottom: Grand Dame Queenie (2013), Precious jewels by the sea (2019), For love and for country (2022), Kingdom (2023), Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (2018), The bathers (2015), A god blessed land (Empire of Dirt) (2022), They call me Redbone but I'd rather be Strawberry Shortcake (2009), Untitled (2018), Breonna Taylor (2020), The boy with no past (2014), When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be (Self-imagined atlas)(2018).

References
Amy Sherald: American Sublime.
Exhibit at the SF MOMA, November 16 to March 9, 2024.
Chan, C. (Sept. 2024). Quiet Beauty: Amy Sherald’s American Art.  SF MOMA.  
https://www.sfmoma.org/read/quiet-beauty-amy-sheralds-american-art/ 

More from the scene of That Famous V-J Day Kiss in Times Square. Life Magazine. 
https://www.life.com/history/v-j-day-kiss-times-square/

Smith, R. (Sept. 12, 2019). Amy Sherald's shining second act. NYTimes. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/arts/design/amy-sherald-michelle-obama-hauser-wirth.html 

Wordmarked - Illustrated Patagonia®

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Patagonia®'s familiar and illustrated wordmark is described at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). The Patagonia® wordmark description specifies: 'Illustration drawing which includes words', 'Mountains (landscapes); Scenery with mountains', 'Rectangles that are completely or partially shaded' and 'lined with the colors blue, purple, and orange'. This illustrated wordmark was first filed on May 20, 1983, and registered on June 19, 1984 as No.1294523, with the US Serial No.73426881. Most recently, the registration was renewed on March 22, 2024.

Below, the black and white drawing on file at the USPTO's TESS, together with a color version, and a picture of the real, breathtaking, patagonia landscape (on the Chilean side). An untouched landscape of mountains, lakes, and glaciers that inspired the trademark illustration, as well as the company’s stewardship.

As a reminder, Patagonia® Inc., was founded in 1973 by Yvon Chouinard, an expert mountain climber, who invented a mountain climbing chock, in 1976. This invention was granted the US patent, US3948485A, titled Irregular, polygonal mountaineering chock. The patented mountain climbing chock was specifically designed to address the issue of rock scarring, caused by the previous sorts of mountain-climbing equipment.

References

Patagonia® Outdoor Clothing and Gear

www.Patagonia.com  

Patagonia® Works

https://www.patagoniaworks.com

Patagonia® Provisions

https://www.patagoniaprovisions.com