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Re: From Wayne Parham - Re: Patentable claim

Posted by Wayne Parham on July 4, 2002 at 13:03:15:
Hello again Mark and Dan!
Dan - As you looked closely at the claim, I'm sure you found yourself thinking as you wrote. You probably thought that the claim was specific enough to make it pass the examiner with some argumentation, but yet - Yes - there is a case that could be made that any triaxial concentric horn could be described by this claim. After all, such a device is
a. not a single driver horn,
b. broken into sections,
c. having a high frequency driver,
d. having the other drivers connected via separate "connections" or "ports" on its surface,
e. mounting the middle frequency driver on a different section than the high frequency driver,
f. mounting the low frequency driver on a different section than either the HF or MF drivers,
g. coupling the drivers together acoustically so that all signals are delivered through the horn
Also, notice too that since the word "horn" here is not defined, i.e. independant of other claims, the word "horn" can be taken to mean the woofer's cone or any shape of horn device. By this definition, the "Jensen triaxial" car speaker is in violation of this claim. Since it was in existance and sold prior to the time of this patent, I think a valid argument can be made that this claim is invalid.
Others are similarly invalid. Mark - You remember our earlier discussions on this matter. I'm sure the Unity is a reasonably good system, but it does not sum flat, as is claimed in the patent. There are frequency anomalies resulting from elements in the time domain caused by the staggered placement of drivers. As Sam pointed out on this patent thread, you have an HF subsystem further from the listener and an LF subsystem closer to the listener, both in relation to the MF subsystem. This means that you must have one of two conditions:
1. Constantly changing phase response, that moves further away from the listener as frequency goes up.
2. Discontinuities in phase response that break rapidly as crossover is made between drivers.
From the response charts you posted on your web site, the latter case is the only one that is supported by your measurement data. There is a diffraction anomaly that looks just like adjacent drivers driven by second-order networks. This is what a person would expect from the staggered positions of the drivers.
This means that the entire premise of the patent is false, and that there is no "unity summation" of phase from this device. It then falls into the "usefulness" condition, where no patent is granted unless the invention performs as described. Your employees may have been able to present evidence that did not include this data, but it is a fact nonetheless. Your own measurements showed it, and so you know that this is true.
I'm sure you probably find me to be "mean spirited" by saying these things. Perhaps so. But the truth is that I think other products your company offers are superb. The Servodrive belt-driven woofer is an excellent idea. I find applications like these in robotics, and had always thought that a great implementation for VLF loudspeakers. The only way to get the kind of parameters needed for single-digit frequency response is by using a motor/pully arrangement like yours or by using a very large linear motor like was used in large disk drives of the seventies. But I just don't think the Unity rises to that level of performance. In fact, I don't think it's a good idea at all. And I don't think that the examiners were dilligent when analyzing your patent application.
Wayne