More fun with wintry patents

Patent

By Jason Rantanen

Here’s my addition to Dennis’s holiday patent post, based off materials I used for my Patent Law exam this year.   The technology involves recent interest of mine: making clear ice cubes.  Thanks to the cocktail renaissance of the 2000’s, there’s been a new interest among home bartenders in upping their game.   And what better way to show off than with a crystal-clear sphere of ice?

A day before to the exam, students were given a packet of documents that included a copy of a 2009 weblog post by Camper English, reprinted with permission.  English’s blog post talks about using “directional freezing” (described as freezing water from the top-down) in order to produce clear ice.  Students were asked to assume the following:

Camper English was the first person to discover that clear ice could be produced in a home freezer by freezing the ice in a directional manner.  English published these findings on a weblog on December 28, 2009, a copy of which you were provided in Appendix A.  English immediately filed a patent application that contained the following claim.

I claim:

  1. A method of producing ice comprising freezing water in a directional manner in a home freezer.

Analyze the patentability of the claim under current patent eligible subject matter law.

***

The remainder of this series of questions revolved around an actual patent for producing clear ice spheres, Patent No 9,784,492, and a hypothetical infringement suit.  I found the concept embodied in the ‘492 patent quite clever: create an insulated two-part mold with a small hole in the bottom leading to a reservoir.  This setup produces clear, shaped ice. The ‘492 patent is assigned to Wintersmith (commercial embodiment).  Claim 1 reads:

1. A device for producing a piece of ice when the device is placed in a freezing environment, wherein the piece of ice has a shape, the device comprising:

an insulating vessel designed and configured to be placed into the freezing environment, the insulating vessel having an interior, an upper portion, and a lower portion and including an opening in the upper portion;

a mold designed and configured to be removably installed into the insulating vessel via the opening each time the device is used to make the piece of ice, the mold:

having an upper end and a lower end spaced from the upper end;
defining a hollow void between the lower end of the mold and the interior of the insulating vessel when mold is installed in the insulating vessel during use of the device;
defining a cavity between the upper and lower ends and having the shape of the piece of ice, the cavity designed and configured to receive a liquid to be frozen into the piece of ice during use of the device;
including an exit hole at the lower end, the exit hole designed and configured to place the cavity of the mold into communication with the hollow void so as to allow the liquid to flow into the hollow void from the cavity of the mold during use of the device; and
including a fill opening in the upper end, the fill opening designed and configured to allow the liquid to flow into the cavity of the mold, wherein the fill opening is used to fill the hollow void and the cavity with the liquid during use of the device to make the piece of ice; and

a cup designed and configured to:

receive the mold so as to laterally constrain the mold during use of the device;
be inserted into the insulating vessel during use of the device; and
include an opening in registration with the exit hole of the mold so as to allow the exit hole to fluidly communicate with the hollow void;
wherein the cup has a substantially cylindrical interior and the mold has a like-shaped exterior designed and configured to confront the cylindrical interior when the mold is fully engaged with the cup.

 

Patent 492

Fig. 1 of Patent No. 9,784,492

 

 

Hide comments

4 thoughts on “More fun with wintry patents”

  1. 2

    Wow I would love to see some of the best answers to the “analyse this on patent eligibility grounds” claim is to broad to be palatable based on obviousness and likely clarity and specificity – how do you define directional ? I can think of several different definitions. Not sure though these really fall (or should fall) into the definition of abstract – which would be the issue here as this doesn’t claim a natural process based on what you gave (though I do wonder if nature does this anywhere).

Comments are closed.