Method and apparatus for measuring outside dimensions and the center of gravity of a package
CA 2222720 C · Owner: United Parcel Service Of America, Inc. · Inventors: Prutu, Victor Nicolas
Overview
Its claims, description and drawings are in the Canadian Patents Database.
Open the CIPO recordAbstract From the Canadian patent
A non-intrusive method and apparatus for determining the center of gravity of a package, while the package is moving. A multi-segment conveyor is used having segments at different slopes relative to each other along with sensors , used to approximate the time it takes a box to "tilt" from one conveyor segment to the other. Also disclosed is the use of a herringbone conveyor in conjunction with a plurality of sidewardly disposed sensors to approximate one spacial coordinate of the package's gravity center with the use of the tilting process.
Read the whole patent
Listed from its CIPO record in Patent Yard's archive of Canadian patents past their term. Its claims, description and drawings are in the CIPO record and on Google Patents, and the Claude kit works from them.
Why it's free to use
- Filed June 6, 1996 and granted November 25, 2003. A Canadian patent filed from October 1, 1989 lasts 20 years from filing, so its term ended June 6, 2016.
- A certificate of supplementary protection adds at most two years for a drug, so even that would have ended by June 6, 2018.
- We check Canadian rights only. A patent in its family in another country could still be in force: check its family on Google Patents.
Timeline
Timeline From CIPO dates
Sources & verification
Official CIPO records
Everything on this page comes from the CIPO record linked above. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.