Re: Hey, Win! CCFL Inverter "self-learning" resonant frequency?

Hello Jim,

Doesn't the common oscillator count? After all it 'self-learns' the resonance of the LC circuit connected to it :-D

That would put prior art back into the days of Heinrich Rudolph Hertz who passed away in 1894. As for switch mode controllers a frequency adaptive scheme was easily done with chips such as Unitrode's UC3860. Those are really old as well. 

Thanks, Joerg!  That's the kind of lead I'm looking for... really old
prior art.


In case you have to convince a jury really old prior art may not be so powerful. But there ought to be lots of newer stuff that at least some jurors would likely have been using a long time ago. I remember that when I was a kid I repaired a few inverters for travel trailers. From the days when fluorescents came only for mains voltage but you had to run them off the trailer or car battery. Some of these inverters were saturation controlled, others were resonant schemes and those might fit into this case. This had been in Europe but one of the US models was made by Trippe Mfg. Co. in Chicago.


I'm seeing an awful lot of issued patents these days that would
indicate that the examiners aren't doing proper prior art searches...
issuing patents on stuff us old farts knew about when we were kids ;-)


As other have said, often employers are enticing their EE staff to patent as much as they can. Then there are the poor lads who think that a patent, any patent, is a ticket to riches. After they have blown a few thousand for progressive maintenance fees and maybe $10k or so on attorney filing help they often realize that it was hot air.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.

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