Patently Speaking highlights the technological achievements of Fort Wayne-area residents.

Keyed/anti-rotation grounding bus bar

•U.S. Patent No. 7,458,861

•Invented by: Gerald N. Eke, Fort Wayne; Sabrina Omar, Fort Wayne; and Dale R. Snapp, Hartford City

•Assigned to International Truck Intellectual Property Co. LLC, Warrenville, Ill.

Telemetric tibial tray

•U.S. Patent No. 7,470,288

•Invented by: Mark DiSilvestro, Fort Wayne; Tony Petrella, Fort Wayne; Terry Dietz, Columbia City; Bob Hastings, Warsaw; Frank D. Matthews, Walpole, Mass.; John E. Slamin, Wrentham, Mass.; and Paul Tomaszewski, Columbia City

•Assigned to DePuy Products Inc., Warsaw

Northeast Indiana is well known for its innovation of automobile parts and medical devices. With so much development in these areas, I guess it is inevitable, or at least coincidental, that two patents can issue from different inventors working for different companies, yet look very similar.

The two inventions we’re discussing this week look strikingly similar when looking at their top views, when indeed they are very different. The first is a new grounding bar for an automobile electrical system, and the second is a lower transducer plate for a telemetric tibial tray used in knee joint replacement surgery.

The grounding bar is a new electrically conductive plate that absorbs excess electricity generated by the vehicle’s electrical system. Sufficient grounding is necessary for any electrical circuit to prevent it from overloading. A large electrically conductive structure, such a vehicle frame, makes a good grounding source. Its size and conductivity easily absorb the excess electricity. And because today’s vehicles require a lot of electricity, they also require substantial grounding. Often ground wires are either attached directly to the frame or to each other and then tethered to the frame. However, neither option may be the best solution.

The Keyed/Anti-Rotation Grounding Bus Bar patent addresses this problem by providing a special grounding bar that looks like an oval plate. The bar is bolted to the frame near the center. Around the periphery of the bar are openings that receive bolts available to attach to grounding wires.

There are also partitions surrounding each bolt hole to accommodate conventional eyelets which are those flat circular ends often affixed to electrical wires. These partitions keep the eyelets from pivoting, otherwise creating a potential for damage or interference by the attached wire.

Several of these bolt holes and partitions are positioned around the periphery of this plate to provide the necessary connections for all a vehicle’s ground wire needs.

In contrast, the Telemetric Tibial Tray patent describes a new telemetric tibial tray component of a replacement knee that optimizes the balance of implant strength with accuracy in load measurement to make sure it fits the patient properly.

Precision in knee arthroplasty is critical, not just the surgery itself, but the size and shape of the replacement knee components. The configuration of the prosthetics must match those of the original knee, so they can withstand the various and unique forces applied to it by the recipient.

The tibial tray is the lower most component that attaches to the tibia and supports the bearing surface and moving femoral component that attaches to the upper femur leg bone. Although looking similar to the grounding bar discussed above, this tibial plate has four load diaphragms, instead of bolt holes, which are part of a transducer cavity. The large center hole is a cavity for receiving a small circuit that monitors the joint. There are also slots inside the tray that accommodates the wiring for the electronics.

The preceding are lay descriptions of patents obtained from the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s public records and are provided for general information purposes only. Nothing contained herein is a legal description of any claimed invention, identification of novelty, or offer of legal advice. Because issued patents are based on applications often filed years earlier, the subject matter of some patents may have been available on the market for some time prior to the issuance of the patent. Additional information on these patents is available at www.uspto.gov.