Automatic price display control by emulation of electronic cash register price lookup
Patent No. 11,354,985
A system and method for distribution of product price and/or sales data in a retail establishment. Product price and/or sales data is stored locally, either in a central computer or master electronic cash register (ECR) or remotely at a master computer. The product price data is stored in the form of a price look-up (PLU) table. The price data can be pushed from the master ECR, local or master computers to and ECR emulation hub to an ECR emulation hub. Similarly, the ECR emulation hub can request product price data from the master ECR, local or master computers. Once the product price data arrives at the ECR emulation hub, it can be processed and sent to a display, which will be located near the appropriate product. The ECR emulation hub can also record and/or transmit prices actually charged for products over time to allow for automatic auditing of promotional pricing offers such as those made by manufacturers of the product. The ECR emulation hub acts like an ECR, thereby requiring no special software or hardware modifications to existing pricing display systems that already support ECRs.
Inventors: William R. Sweeney (Richmond)
Assignee: Philip Morris USA (New York, New York)
June 8, 2022
Body gesture control system for buttonless vaping
Patent No. 11,350,671
A method of detecting a hand-to-mouth (HMG) gesture with an e-vaping device includes detecting movements of the e-vaping device; generating quaternions based on the detected movements; generating movement features based on the generated quaternions; applying the generated movement features to a classifier; and determining whether the detected movements correspond to an HMG based on an output of the classifier.
Inventors: Eric Hawes (Richmond), Raymond Lau (Richmond), Terry Bache (Richmond), Niall Gallagher (Richmond)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 8, 2022
Systems and methods for stabilizer control
Patent No. 11,353,907
A method, apparatus, system and computer program is provided for controlling an electric power system, including implementation of a voltage control and conservation (VCC) system used to optimally control the independent voltage and capacitor banks using a linear optimization methodology to minimize the losses in the EEDCS and the EUS. An energy validation process system (EVP) is provided which is used to document the savings of the VCC and an EPP is used to optimize improvements to the EEDCS for continuously improving the energy losses in the EEDS. The EVP system measures the improvement in the EEDS a result of operating the VCC system in the “ON” state determining the level of energy conservation achieved by the VCC system. In addition the VCC system monitors pattern recognition events and compares them to the report-by-exception data to detect HVL events. If one is detected the VCC optimizes the capacity of the EEDS to respond to the HVL events by centering the piecewise linear solution maximizing the ability of the EDDS to absorb the HVL event. The VCC stabilizer function integrates voltage data from AMI meters and assess the state of the grid and initiates appropriate voltage control actions to hedge against predictable voltage risks.
Inventors: Stephen J. Tyler (Henrico, Virginia), Phillip W. Powell (Chesterfield, Virginia)
Assignee: Dominion Energy (Richmond)
June 8, 2022
Methods of staging, processing, and transporting biomasses
Patent No. 11,352,745
Embodiments disclosed herein relate to methods and systems for processing and transporting biomass to an end user. In an embodiment, a method of processing and transporting biomass to an end user is disclosed. The method includes tapping a biomass for processing, processing the biomass into a biomass slurry, and transporting the biomass slurry to an end user off site through a transport conduit therebetween.
Inventors: Timothy J. Richter (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Matera (Glen Allen, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Identity verification using autonomous vehicles
Patent No. 11,354,394
Various embodiments are generally directed to identity verification using autonomous vehicles. A security policy may be used to determine when identity verification using autonomous vehicles is required. The autonomous vehicle may be deployed to a location to verify the identity of the user based on one or more of images, audio data, biometric data, and wireless data connections.
Inventors: Michael Mossoba (Arlington, Virginia), Abdelkader M’Hamed Benkreira (New York, New York), Joshua Edwards (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Discovery crawler for application dependency discovery, reporting, and management tool
Patent No. 11,354,222
Techniques for monitoring operating statuses of an application and its dependencies are provided. A monitoring application may collect and report the operating status of the monitored application and each dependency. Through use of existing monitoring interfaces, the monitoring application can collect operating status without requiring modification of the underlying monitored application or dependencies. The monitoring application may determine a problem service that is a root cause of an unhealthy state of the monitored application. Dependency analyzer and discovery crawler techniques may automatically configure and update the monitoring application. Machine learning techniques may be used to determine patterns of performance based on system state information associated with performance events and provide health reports relative to a baseline status of the monitored application. Also provided are techniques for testing a response of the monitored application through modifications to API calls. Such tests may be used to train the machine learning model.
Inventors: Muralidharan Balasubramanian (Gaithersburg, Maryland), Eric K. Barnum (Midlothian, Virginia), Julie Dallen (Vienna, Virginia), David Watson (Arlington, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Determining problem dependencies in application dependency discovery, reporting, and management tool
Patent No. 11,354,131
Techniques for monitoring operating statuses of an application and its dependencies are provided. A monitoring application may collect and report the operating status of the monitored application and each dependency. Through use of existing monitoring interfaces, the monitoring application can collect operating status without requiring modification of the underlying monitored application or dependencies. The monitoring application may determine a problem service that is a root cause of an unhealthy state of the monitored application. Dependency analyzer and discovery crawler techniques may automatically configure and update the monitoring application. Machine learning techniques may be used to determine patterns of performance based on system state information associated with performance events and provide health reports relative to a baseline status of the monitored application. Also provided are techniques for testing a response of the monitored application through modifications to API calls. Such tests may be used to train the machine learning model.
Inventors: Muralidharan Balasubramanian (Gaithersburg, Maryland), Eric K. Barnum (Midlothian, Virginia), Julie Dallen (Vienna, Virginia), David Watson (Arlington, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Cartridge and e-vaping device
Patent No. 11,363,681
A cartridge of an e-vaping device includes a housing extending in a longitudinal direction, a reservoir in the housing, a heater in the housing, and an absorbent material at least partially surrounding the sinusoidal shaped member. The reservoir is configured to store a pre-vapor formulation. The heater has a sinusoidal shaped member translating about an elliptical shape to define a channel there through. The absorbent material is in fluid communication with the reservoir.
Inventors: Shmuel Gavrielov (Beit Shemesh, Israel), Yuval Malka (Richmond), Rangaraj S. Sundar (Richmond), Isaac Weigensberg (Richmond), David Rubli (Revava, Israel), Moshe Eliyahu (Beit Shemesh, Israel), Arye Weigensberg (Richmond), Christopher S.Tucker (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Ground fault protection in a high resistance grounding system
Patent No. 11,362,507
Systems, methods, techniques and apparatuses of ground fault protection are disclosed. One exemplary embodiment is a power switch being structured to receive a load current from a power source at a source-side and selectively output the load current from a load-side to a load; a first voltage measuring device structured to measure a first voltage of the source-side while the power switch is conducting the load current; a second voltage measuring device structured to measure a second voltage of the load-side while the first voltage measuring device is measuring the first voltage; and a controller structured to determine a source-side-to-ground voltage based on the first voltage, determine a load-side-to-ground voltage based on the second voltage, determine a ground fault is occurring, and determine a direction of the ground fault relative to the power switch by comparing the source-side-to-ground voltage and the load-side-to-ground voltage.
Inventors: Thomas Kendzia III (Henrico, Virginia), Veerakumar Bose (Richmond)
Assignee: ABB Schweiz AG (Baden, Switzerland)
June 14, 2022
System and method for dynamic discovery and enhancements of diagnostic rules
Patent No. 11,361,283
A complex asset analysis operation, comprising: receiving data from a plurality of crowd sourced complex assets; aggregating the data received from the plurality of crowd sourced complex assets; and, performing a complex asset analysis operation based upon the data received from the plurality of crowd sourced devices, the complex asset analysis operation providing an information brokerage function for a community of complex assets by managing shared information from the plurality of crowd sourced complex assets.
Inventors: Akram Bou-Ghannam (Lake Worth, Florida), Kalman Gyimesi (Richmond), Jenny S. Li (Danbury, Connecticut)
Assignee: International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, New York)
June 14, 2022
Collapsible fiber matrix reservoir for an e-vaping device
Patent No. 11,357,937
Example embodiments relate to a cartridge configured to house a pre-vapor formulation for an e-vaping device, the cartridge including an inner portion and an outer portion configured to store the pre-vapor formulation. The outer portion includes a plurality of fibers configured to be mobile and/or configured to be substantially free of entanglement with one another. The fibers are configured to be substantially free of entanglement with one another based on the lengths of the plurality of fibers. For example, the lengths of the plurality of fibers may be in a range of about 3 mm to about 7 mm. The lengths may also be about 5 mm.
Inventors: Jason Andrew Macko (Richmond), Peter Lipowicz (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Pod assembly, dispensing body, and e-vapor apparatus including the same
Patent No. 11,357,934
At least one example embodiment discloses a pod for an electronic vapor (e-vapor) apparatus. The pod includes a pre-vapor formulation compartment configured to hold a pre-vapor formulation therein, a device compartment in fluidic communication with the pre-vapor formulation compartment, the device compartment including a processor configured to monitor the pre-vapor formulation compartment and identify the pre-vapor formulation and a vapor channel extending from the device compartment and through the pre-vapor formulation compartment.
Inventors: Eric Hawes (Richmond), Raymond Lau (Richmond), Alistair Bramley (Richmond)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
Smokeless tobacco packaging system and method
Patent No. 11,357,256
Some embodiments of a smokeless tobacco system include a container including a plurality of preformed smokeless tobacco products configured to generally retain their shape and integrity during processing, shipping, and consumer handling. One or more of the preformed smokeless tobacco products are compressed between a lid and a base of the container to hinder movement of the one or more preformed smokeless tobacco products within the container. Each preformed smokeless tobacco product can include a moist smokeless tobacco in combination with a selected binder such that the final product is configured to have material properties providing improved handling, an improved mouth feel, and a satisfying flavor profile.
Inventors: Jason Andrew Macko (Richmond), James Lindsay Clark (Richmond), Shannon Maxwell Black (Richmond), Andrew Nathan Carroll (Chester, Virginia), Srinivasan Janardhan (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Antenna orchestration as a service
Patent No. 11,363,591
A matchmaking service can match a satellite owner/operator with antennas that are available and capable of servicing a communication request from the satellite owner/operator (e.g., to exchange data with the satellite owner/operator’s satellite). The communication request may be received at a ground station service, and information included therein may be compared to capabilities of antennas registered with the ground station service to determine antennas that are compatible with the request. The ground station service may reserve a time slot for a selected compatible antenna to service the request and control the selected compatible antenna (e.g., to track and communicate with the satellite) during the time slot. In some embodiments, the matchmaking of satellite owners/operators to antennas uses models to determine communication parameters for a communication request and to determine capabilities of antennas registered with the ground station.
Inventors: Prabu Ramachandran (Ashburn, Virginia), Nathan Burns (Chesterfield, Virginia) Michelle Lynn Dobbs (Denver, Colorado), Andrew Wolfe (Denver, Colorado), Kevin Cheek (Herndon, Virginia), John Garvey (Reston, Virginia), Ben Linville (Englewood, Colorado), Ismael Gonzales (Littleton, Colorado)
Assignee: Amazon Technologies (Seattle, Washington)
June 14, 2022
Nano-porous BNNT composite with thermal switching for advanced batteries
Patent No. 11,362,400
Thermoresponsive composite switch (TRCS) membranes for ion batteries include a porous scaffolding providing ion channels and a thermoresponsive polymer coating. Boron nitride nanotube (BNNT)/polymer composite TRCS membrane embodiments are preferable due to unique BNNT properties. A BNNT scaffold coated with one or more polymers may form a composite separator with tunable porosity (porosity level and pore size distribution), composition, wettability, and superior electronic isolation, oxidative/reduction resistance, and mechanical strength. The BNNT/polymer composite TRCS membrane optimizes the performance of ion batteries with tunable separator thicknesses that may be under 5 .mu..eta.. Nano-scale porosity with thin separator thicknesses improves the charge density of the battery. Nano-scale architecture allows for reversible localized switching on the nano scale, in proximity to thermally stressed ion substrates. Polymer thermal expansion will decrease porosity at temperatures approaching the thermal runaway point. The BNNT polymers composite therefore functions as a TRCS.
Inventors: Thomas G. Dushatinski (Chesapeake, Virginia), Gary S. Huvard (Chesterfield, Virginia), R. Roy Whitney (Newport News, Virginia), Kevin C. Jordan (Newport News, Virginia), Diego Pedrazzoli (Newport News, Virginia), Michael W. Smith (Newport News, Virginia), Jonathan C. Stevens (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Assignee: BNNT LLC (Newport News, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Stand mixer with mechanism to lift head
Patent No. 11,358,106
A stand mixer includes: a lower assembly comprising a base and a lower support arm extending upwardly from the base; an upper assembly comprising a generally horizontal head positioned above the base and an upper support arm extending downwardly from the head, the lower and upper support arm assemblies forming a generally vertical support arm, the head configured to provide a mounting location for a beater; and a head-raising mechanism that moves the head relative to the base between raised and lowered positions, the head remaining generally horizontal in the raised position.
Inventors: Benjamin H. Branson III (Mechanicsville, Virginia), Koen Aidan Ambrose (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Hamilton Beach Brands (Glen Allen, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Systems and methods for preventing chip fraud by inserts in chip pocket
Patent No. 11,361,208
Systems and methods for providing fraud prevention inserts in a chip pocket of a card are provided. A chip fraud prevention system includes a device including a chip and one or more fraud prevention inserts. The chip, and the fraud prevention inserts, may be at least partially encompassed in a chip pocket.
Inventors: Daniel Herrington (New York, New York), Stephen Schneider (Midlothian, Virginia), Tyler Maiman (Melville, New York)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Variable rate monitoring in flow-based metering systems
Patent No. 11,359,934
Certain aspects and features include techniques for reporting resource flow at a metering device. In an example, a metering device measures resource flow by measuring a pressure or a flow rate. The metering device sets a reporting rate to a default reporting rate. The metering device transmits communications indicating the measured resource flow to an external device at the reporting rate. The metering device detects seismic activity at the metering device. The metering device determines that the seismic activity exceeds a seismic threshold. The metering device, in response to determining that the seismic activity exceeds the seismic threshold, adjusts the reporting rate to an event reporting rate, and starts an event time period. The metering device, transmits communications indicating the measured resource flow to the external device at the event reporting rate during the event time period.
Inventors: John Radgowski (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Landis+Gyr Innovations (Alpharetta, Georgia)
June 14, 2022
Method and devices for controlling electronic vaping devices
Patent No. 11,357,936
According to at least one example embodiment, a controller for an e-vaping device includes a movement sensor configured to detect movement of the e-vaping device and output an output signal based on the movement. The controller includes control circuitry configured to control power supplied to power consuming elements of the e-vaping device based on the output signal.
Inventors: Peter J. Lipowicz (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Composite scaffold for the repair, reconstruction, and regeneration of soft tissues
Patent No. 11,357,613
A composite scaffold having a highly porous interior with increased surface area and void volume is surrounded by a flexible support structure that substantially maintains its three-dimensional shape under tension and provides mechanical reinforcement during repair or reconstruction of soft tissue while simultaneously facilitating regeneration of functional tissue.
Inventors: Kevin A. Rocco (New Haven, Connecticut), Bhavana Mohanraj (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Jeffrey Ott (New Haven, Connecticut), Justin Bendigo (Reading, Pennsylvania), Jacob Edward Komenda (New Haven, Connecticut), Mark Theodore Aronson (Midlothian, Virginia), Andrew James Carter (Stow, Massachusetts)
Assignee: Biorez (New Haven, Connecticut)
June 14, 2022
Automatic price display control by emulation of electronic cash register price lookup
Patent No. 11,354,985
A system and method for distribution of product price and/or sales data in a retail establishment. Product price and/or sales data is stored locally, either in a central computer or master electronic cash register (ECR) or remotely at a master computer. The product price data is stored in the form of a price look-up (PLU) table. The price data can be pushed from the master ECR, local or master computers to and ECR emulation hub to an ECR emulation hub. Similarly, the ECR emulation hub can request product price data from the master ECR, local or master computers. Once the product price data arrives at the ECR emulation hub, it can be processed and sent to a display, which will be located near the appropriate product. The ECR emulation hub can also record and/or transmit prices actually charged for products over time to allow for automatic auditing of promotional pricing offers such as those made by manufacturers of the product. The ECR emulation hub acts like an ECR, thereby requiring no special software or hardware modifications to existing pricing display systems that already support ECRs.
Inventors: William R. Sweeney (Richmond)
Assignee: Philip Morris USA (New York, New York)
June 8, 2022
Body gesture control system for buttonless vaping
Patent No. 11,350,671
A method of detecting a hand-to-mouth (HMG) gesture with an e-vaping device includes detecting movements of the e-vaping device; generating quaternions based on the detected movements; generating movement features based on the generated quaternions; applying the generated movement features to a classifier; and determining whether the detected movements correspond to an HMG based on an output of the classifier.
Inventors: Eric Hawes (Richmond), Raymond Lau (Richmond), Terry Bache (Richmond), Niall Gallagher (Richmond)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 8, 2022
Systems and methods for stabilizer control
Patent No. 11,353,907
A method, apparatus, system and computer program is provided for controlling an electric power system, including implementation of a voltage control and conservation (VCC) system used to optimally control the independent voltage and capacitor banks using a linear optimization methodology to minimize the losses in the EEDCS and the EUS. An energy validation process system (EVP) is provided which is used to document the savings of the VCC and an EPP is used to optimize improvements to the EEDCS for continuously improving the energy losses in the EEDS. The EVP system measures the improvement in the EEDS a result of operating the VCC system in the “ON” state determining the level of energy conservation achieved by the VCC system. In addition the VCC system monitors pattern recognition events and compares them to the report-by-exception data to detect HVL events. If one is detected the VCC optimizes the capacity of the EEDS to respond to the HVL events by centering the piecewise linear solution maximizing the ability of the EDDS to absorb the HVL event. The VCC stabilizer function integrates voltage data from AMI meters and assess the state of the grid and initiates appropriate voltage control actions to hedge against predictable voltage risks.
Inventors: Stephen J. Tyler (Henrico, Virginia), Phillip W. Powell (Chesterfield, Virginia)
Assignee: Dominion Energy (Richmond)
June 8, 2022
Methods of staging, processing, and transporting biomasses
Patent No. 11,352,745
Embodiments disclosed herein relate to methods and systems for processing and transporting biomass to an end user. In an embodiment, a method of processing and transporting biomass to an end user is disclosed. The method includes tapping a biomass for processing, processing the biomass into a biomass slurry, and transporting the biomass slurry to an end user off site through a transport conduit therebetween.
Inventors: Timothy J. Richter (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Matera (Glen Allen, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Identity verification using autonomous vehicles
Patent No. 11,354,394
Various embodiments are generally directed to identity verification using autonomous vehicles. A security policy may be used to determine when identity verification using autonomous vehicles is required. The autonomous vehicle may be deployed to a location to verify the identity of the user based on one or more of images, audio data, biometric data, and wireless data connections.
Inventors: Michael Mossoba (Arlington, Virginia), Abdelkader M’Hamed Benkreira (New York, New York), Joshua Edwards (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Discovery crawler for application dependency discovery, reporting, and management tool
Patent No. 11,354,222
Techniques for monitoring operating statuses of an application and its dependencies are provided. A monitoring application may collect and report the operating status of the monitored application and each dependency. Through use of existing monitoring interfaces, the monitoring application can collect operating status without requiring modification of the underlying monitored application or dependencies. The monitoring application may determine a problem service that is a root cause of an unhealthy state of the monitored application. Dependency analyzer and discovery crawler techniques may automatically configure and update the monitoring application. Machine learning techniques may be used to determine patterns of performance based on system state information associated with performance events and provide health reports relative to a baseline status of the monitored application. Also provided are techniques for testing a response of the monitored application through modifications to API calls. Such tests may be used to train the machine learning model.
Inventors: Muralidharan Balasubramanian (Gaithersburg, Maryland), Eric K. Barnum (Midlothian, Virginia), Julie Dallen (Vienna, Virginia), David Watson (Arlington, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Determining problem dependencies in application dependency discovery, reporting, and management tool
Patent No. 11,354,131
Techniques for monitoring operating statuses of an application and its dependencies are provided. A monitoring application may collect and report the operating status of the monitored application and each dependency. Through use of existing monitoring interfaces, the monitoring application can collect operating status without requiring modification of the underlying monitored application or dependencies. The monitoring application may determine a problem service that is a root cause of an unhealthy state of the monitored application. Dependency analyzer and discovery crawler techniques may automatically configure and update the monitoring application. Machine learning techniques may be used to determine patterns of performance based on system state information associated with performance events and provide health reports relative to a baseline status of the monitored application. Also provided are techniques for testing a response of the monitored application through modifications to API calls. Such tests may be used to train the machine learning model.
Inventors: Muralidharan Balasubramanian (Gaithersburg, Maryland), Eric K. Barnum (Midlothian, Virginia), Julie Dallen (Vienna, Virginia), David Watson (Arlington, Virginia)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 8, 2022
Cartridge and e-vaping device
Patent No. 11,363,681
A cartridge of an e-vaping device includes a housing extending in a longitudinal direction, a reservoir in the housing, a heater in the housing, and an absorbent material at least partially surrounding the sinusoidal shaped member. The reservoir is configured to store a pre-vapor formulation. The heater has a sinusoidal shaped member translating about an elliptical shape to define a channel there through. The absorbent material is in fluid communication with the reservoir.
Inventors: Shmuel Gavrielov (Beit Shemesh, Israel), Yuval Malka (Richmond), Rangaraj S. Sundar (Richmond), Isaac Weigensberg (Richmond), David Rubli (Revava, Israel), Moshe Eliyahu (Beit Shemesh, Israel), Arye Weigensberg (Richmond), Christopher S.Tucker (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Ground fault protection in a high resistance grounding system
Patent No. 11,362,507
Systems, methods, techniques and apparatuses of ground fault protection are disclosed. One exemplary embodiment is a power switch being structured to receive a load current from a power source at a source-side and selectively output the load current from a load-side to a load; a first voltage measuring device structured to measure a first voltage of the source-side while the power switch is conducting the load current; a second voltage measuring device structured to measure a second voltage of the load-side while the first voltage measuring device is measuring the first voltage; and a controller structured to determine a source-side-to-ground voltage based on the first voltage, determine a load-side-to-ground voltage based on the second voltage, determine a ground fault is occurring, and determine a direction of the ground fault relative to the power switch by comparing the source-side-to-ground voltage and the load-side-to-ground voltage.
Inventors: Thomas Kendzia III (Henrico, Virginia), Veerakumar Bose (Richmond)
Assignee: ABB Schweiz AG (Baden, Switzerland)
June 14, 2022
System and method for dynamic discovery and enhancements of diagnostic rules
Patent No. 11,361,283
A complex asset analysis operation, comprising: receiving data from a plurality of crowd sourced complex assets; aggregating the data received from the plurality of crowd sourced complex assets; and, performing a complex asset analysis operation based upon the data received from the plurality of crowd sourced devices, the complex asset analysis operation providing an information brokerage function for a community of complex assets by managing shared information from the plurality of crowd sourced complex assets.
Inventors: Akram Bou-Ghannam (Lake Worth, Florida), Kalman Gyimesi (Richmond), Jenny S. Li (Danbury, Connecticut)
Assignee: International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, New York)
June 14, 2022
Collapsible fiber matrix reservoir for an e-vaping device
Patent No. 11,357,937
Example embodiments relate to a cartridge configured to house a pre-vapor formulation for an e-vaping device, the cartridge including an inner portion and an outer portion configured to store the pre-vapor formulation. The outer portion includes a plurality of fibers configured to be mobile and/or configured to be substantially free of entanglement with one another. The fibers are configured to be substantially free of entanglement with one another based on the lengths of the plurality of fibers. For example, the lengths of the plurality of fibers may be in a range of about 3 mm to about 7 mm. The lengths may also be about 5 mm.
Inventors: Jason Andrew Macko (Richmond), Peter Lipowicz (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Pod assembly, dispensing body, and e-vapor apparatus including the same
Patent No. 11,357,934
At least one example embodiment discloses a pod for an electronic vapor (e-vapor) apparatus. The pod includes a pre-vapor formulation compartment configured to hold a pre-vapor formulation therein, a device compartment in fluidic communication with the pre-vapor formulation compartment, the device compartment including a processor configured to monitor the pre-vapor formulation compartment and identify the pre-vapor formulation and a vapor channel extending from the device compartment and through the pre-vapor formulation compartment.
Inventors: Eric Hawes (Richmond), Raymond Lau (Richmond), Alistair Bramley (Richmond)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
Smokeless tobacco packaging system and method
Patent No. 11,357,256
Some embodiments of a smokeless tobacco system include a container including a plurality of preformed smokeless tobacco products configured to generally retain their shape and integrity during processing, shipping, and consumer handling. One or more of the preformed smokeless tobacco products are compressed between a lid and a base of the container to hinder movement of the one or more preformed smokeless tobacco products within the container. Each preformed smokeless tobacco product can include a moist smokeless tobacco in combination with a selected binder such that the final product is configured to have material properties providing improved handling, an improved mouth feel, and a satisfying flavor profile.
Inventors: Jason Andrew Macko (Richmond), James Lindsay Clark (Richmond), Shannon Maxwell Black (Richmond), Andrew Nathan Carroll (Chester, Virginia), Srinivasan Janardhan (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Antenna orchestration as a service
Patent No. 11,363,591
A matchmaking service can match a satellite owner/operator with antennas that are available and capable of servicing a communication request from the satellite owner/operator (e.g., to exchange data with the satellite owner/operator’s satellite). The communication request may be received at a ground station service, and information included therein may be compared to capabilities of antennas registered with the ground station service to determine antennas that are compatible with the request. The ground station service may reserve a time slot for a selected compatible antenna to service the request and control the selected compatible antenna (e.g., to track and communicate with the satellite) during the time slot. In some embodiments, the matchmaking of satellite owners/operators to antennas uses models to determine communication parameters for a communication request and to determine capabilities of antennas registered with the ground station.
Inventors: Prabu Ramachandran (Ashburn, Virginia), Nathan Burns (Chesterfield, Virginia) Michelle Lynn Dobbs (Denver, Colorado), Andrew Wolfe (Denver, Colorado), Kevin Cheek (Herndon, Virginia), John Garvey (Reston, Virginia), Ben Linville (Englewood, Colorado), Ismael Gonzales (Littleton, Colorado)
Assignee: Amazon Technologies (Seattle, Washington)
June 14, 2022
Nano-porous BNNT composite with thermal switching for advanced batteries
Patent No. 11,362,400
Thermoresponsive composite switch (TRCS) membranes for ion batteries include a porous scaffolding providing ion channels and a thermoresponsive polymer coating. Boron nitride nanotube (BNNT)/polymer composite TRCS membrane embodiments are preferable due to unique BNNT properties. A BNNT scaffold coated with one or more polymers may form a composite separator with tunable porosity (porosity level and pore size distribution), composition, wettability, and superior electronic isolation, oxidative/reduction resistance, and mechanical strength. The BNNT/polymer composite TRCS membrane optimizes the performance of ion batteries with tunable separator thicknesses that may be under 5 .mu..eta.. Nano-scale porosity with thin separator thicknesses improves the charge density of the battery. Nano-scale architecture allows for reversible localized switching on the nano scale, in proximity to thermally stressed ion substrates. Polymer thermal expansion will decrease porosity at temperatures approaching the thermal runaway point. The BNNT polymers composite therefore functions as a TRCS.
Inventors: Thomas G. Dushatinski (Chesapeake, Virginia), Gary S. Huvard (Chesterfield, Virginia), R. Roy Whitney (Newport News, Virginia), Kevin C. Jordan (Newport News, Virginia), Diego Pedrazzoli (Newport News, Virginia), Michael W. Smith (Newport News, Virginia), Jonathan C. Stevens (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Assignee: BNNT LLC (Newport News, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Stand mixer with mechanism to lift head
Patent No. 11,358,106
A stand mixer includes: a lower assembly comprising a base and a lower support arm extending upwardly from the base; an upper assembly comprising a generally horizontal head positioned above the base and an upper support arm extending downwardly from the head, the lower and upper support arm assemblies forming a generally vertical support arm, the head configured to provide a mounting location for a beater; and a head-raising mechanism that moves the head relative to the base between raised and lowered positions, the head remaining generally horizontal in the raised position.
Inventors: Benjamin H. Branson III (Mechanicsville, Virginia), Koen Aidan Ambrose (Glen Allen, Virginia)
Assignee: Hamilton Beach Brands (Glen Allen, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Systems and methods for preventing chip fraud by inserts in chip pocket
Patent No. 11,361,208
Systems and methods for providing fraud prevention inserts in a chip pocket of a card are provided. A chip fraud prevention system includes a device including a chip and one or more fraud prevention inserts. The chip, and the fraud prevention inserts, may be at least partially encompassed in a chip pocket.
Inventors: Daniel Herrington (New York, New York), Stephen Schneider (Midlothian, Virginia), Tyler Maiman (Melville, New York)
Assignee: Capital One Services (McLean, Virginia)
June 14, 2022
Variable rate monitoring in flow-based metering systems
Patent No. 11,359,934
Certain aspects and features include techniques for reporting resource flow at a metering device. In an example, a metering device measures resource flow by measuring a pressure or a flow rate. The metering device sets a reporting rate to a default reporting rate. The metering device transmits communications indicating the measured resource flow to an external device at the reporting rate. The metering device detects seismic activity at the metering device. The metering device determines that the seismic activity exceeds a seismic threshold. The metering device, in response to determining that the seismic activity exceeds the seismic threshold, adjusts the reporting rate to an event reporting rate, and starts an event time period. The metering device, transmits communications indicating the measured resource flow to the external device at the event reporting rate during the event time period.
Inventors: John Radgowski (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Landis+Gyr Innovations (Alpharetta, Georgia)
June 14, 2022
Method and devices for controlling electronic vaping devices
Patent No. 11,357,936
According to at least one example embodiment, a controller for an e-vaping device includes a movement sensor configured to detect movement of the e-vaping device and output an output signal based on the movement. The controller includes control circuitry configured to control power supplied to power consuming elements of the e-vaping device based on the output signal.
Inventors: Peter J. Lipowicz (Midlothian, Virginia)
Assignee: Altria Client Services (Richmond)
June 14, 2022
Composite scaffold for the repair, reconstruction, and regeneration of soft tissues
Patent No. 11,357,613
A composite scaffold having a highly porous interior with increased surface area and void volume is surrounded by a flexible support structure that substantially maintains its three-dimensional shape under tension and provides mechanical reinforcement during repair or reconstruction of soft tissue while simultaneously facilitating regeneration of functional tissue.
Inventors: Kevin A. Rocco (New Haven, Connecticut), Bhavana Mohanraj (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), Jeffrey Ott (New Haven, Connecticut), Justin Bendigo (Reading, Pennsylvania), Jacob Edward Komenda (New Haven, Connecticut), Mark Theodore Aronson (Midlothian, Virginia), Andrew James Carter (Stow, Massachusetts)
Assignee: Biorez (New Haven, Connecticut)
June 14, 2022