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Fire Extinguisher Balls
An Anonymous Coward writes "The Far Eastern Economic Review has this article about a Thai inventor who has come up with throwable fire extinguisher balls. You just toss them into the fire, or place them in high risk areas, and - boom - they explode from the heat and spew various fire-retardants all over the place. According to the article, they will soon be on sale in Thailand's 7-Eleven stores and are being considered by US-based fire and safety supply company Tyco."
It's a real beaut, but doesn't it seem a bit ornate for something you're going to lob into a fire with hopes that it will shatter?
Manufacturers had tons of class back then.
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You display a stunning ignorance of how the patent system works. Worse then that, it's the same stunning ignorance that's causing many of the current problems with patents in the United States. Patents cover a specific product or process. They do NOT cover every possible way of doing a particular task.
If you develop a fire extinguisher in a glass ball, your patent covers things like the shape of the glass ball, the composition of chemicals inside, etc. It does NOT cover every possible one-use fire extinguisher that could possibly be made.
This later invention has a different containment system, contains different chemicals, and uses a different means of detecting when to go off (heat versus impact). It deserves it's own patent.
He can probably get a few patents out of it. If a mousetrap has been invented I can still get a patent on a better one.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
A brilliant idea, but easy to copy once you see it.
It's fascinating to me that the government grant he received is for the purpose of getting international patent rights to this idea.
You can survive without oxygen for a minute or so. A fire can't.