LG Electronics may not have the largest share of consumer electronics markets, even in its home country South Korea, but the corporation has lately been a patenting juggernaut. LG was awarded the 5th most U.S. patent grants during 2013 and was one of only five companies to eclipse 3,000 patents awarded in that year; LG still played second fiddle to Samsung, which was 2nd place last year with 4,652 patents. LG actually maintains a thorough list of its patent portfolio, sorted so that a reader can easily find which LG products are using which patented technology, on its website. The corporation recently invested $4 million to form Unified Innovative Technology of Delaware, OH, which some have speculated is a move intended to protect LG’s international intellectual property interests. In early November, the company also announced a 10-year agreement with Google for global cross-licensing of patents, similar to a deal signed by Google with Samsung earlier this year.
Korean tech companies love robots. Our recent coverage of Samsung featured a bevy of robotics technologies, so we were piqued when we noticed a patent issued to its neighbor in the same field. U.S. Patent No. 8903590, which is titled Robot Cleaner and Method for Controlling the Same, protects a robot cleaner with a travel unit that responds to a travel mode command, a detection unit for detecting items to be cleaned and a control unit that generates a map for cleaning. This technology is designed to achieve a more efficient and accurate method of generating a map for cleaning within a robotic cleaner.
Many of LG’s recent patents for home appliances involve non-robotic technologies and we especially noticed a preponderance of patents issued to protect refrigerator innovations. A design for a fridge with better insulation properties is protected by U.S. Patent No. 8899068, which is titled Refrigerator Comprising Vacuum Space. The refrigerator claimed by this patent includes a vacuum space situated between an inner case and outer case of a fridge which maintains a vacuum state for heat insulation. This invention is intended to support the design of increasingly compact refrigerators while at the same time maximizing the storage space of the appliance and improving temperature insulation.
A system for the quick retrieval of food from within a refrigerator is discussed within U.S. Patent No. 8894167, issued under the title Refrigerator. The patent protects a refrigerator with a cabinet having both an upper and lower storage chamber, a pair of rail assemblies mounted in the lower storage chamber and a pull-out drawer that opens or closes the lower storage chamber. The easy removal of food from a pull-out drawer allows a user to take food out of a refrigerated chamber while minimizing the loss of cold air through an open door.
We’ve covered the continuing rise of wearable gadgets on IPWatchdog in recent weeks, so we were quite interested to explore the technological innovation protected by U.S. Patent No. 8896526, entitled Smartwatch and Control Method Thereof. This patent claims a smartwatch that includes a display unit, a processor and a tilt sensor unit utilized by the processor to determine a reference position of the smartwatch when worn by a user and acquire information about the change in angle of a smartwatch when the apparatus rotates on a wrist. This system is designed to increase the accuracy of detecting an angle of rotation on a smartwatch, enabling the use of tilt commands to control applications.
Automated traffic reporting systems was another invention which we were intrigued to see coming out of the research facilities of LG Electronics. U.S. Patent No. 8903635, entitled Providing and Using of Information on Video Related to Traffic Situation, protects a method for processing traffic information that includes multiple component frames and traffic messages and transmitting the encoded traffic information. This invention was pursued in order to take advantage of newly developed digital signal processing for radio and television which enables signals to transmit auxiliary information such as traffic on terrestrial or satellite networks.
In the final patent we explore today, we were intrigued by an LG subsidiary which has some R&D activities focused on development outside of consumer electronics. U.S. Patent No. 8889691, entitled Indole Compounds as an Inhibitor of Cellular Necrosis, protects a pharmaceutical composition developed by LG Life Sciences Ltd., also of Seoul. The invention involves the use of derivatives of indole, an organic crystalline compound present in coal tar and a substance which is increasingly being used in pharmaceutical applications. The patent claims a method of treating necrosis and necrosis-associated diseases, which can include diabetes, pancreatitis, leukemia, lymphoma and muscular dystrophy, by administering a composition that includes an indole compound.
Tags: consumer electronics, LG, LG Electronics, LG patents, patent, patents, robotics
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