PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15936134
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-03
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["065", "029190"]

Abstract:
A method and apparatus are provided for producing a tube of glass by zonewise heating and softening of a hollow cylinder by a movable heating zone while rotating about its rotation axis. The glass tube is continuously formed by radial expansion of the softened region under action of centrifugal force and/or internal overpressure applied in the hollow-cylinder bore. The method and apparatus make it possible to deform the hollow cylinder in a single or a small number of forming steps into a glass tube having a larger outer diameter and high dimensional accuracy by determining a circumferential position at which the wall thickness is comparatively small, and during heating and softening of the rotating hollow cylinder a coolant is dispensed from a coolant source onto the deformation zone only when or predominantly when the circumferential position having the comparatively small wall thickness passes the coolant source.

Claim (Index 1):
An apparatus for producing a tube of glass, the apparatus comprising:\n a rotation device to rotate a hollow cylinder of glass about its longitudinal axis, the hollow cylinder having a bore defined by a wall, a wall thickness, and an initial outer wall diameter D 1 , the hollow cylinder having a circumferential position at which the wall thickness is minimal around a circumference thereof; a heater which is axially movable relative to the hollow cylinder for heating and softening of the hollow cylinder in a zonewise manner while the hollow cylinder is rotating about its longitudinal axis and a heating zone is moved axially relative to the longitudinal axis, at least one of centrifugal force and internal overpressure being applied in the hollow cylinder bore for causing radial expansion of a softened area of the hollow cylinder and forming of a deformation zone, and the hollow cylinder being continuously deformed to form a tube having a second outer diameter D 2  which is greater than initial diameter D 1 ; and a coolant source arranged around the deformation zone to dispense a coolant periodically to the deformation zone as soon as the circumferential position having the minimal wall thickness passes the coolant source due to the rotation of the hollow cylinder during heating and softening thereof.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 1.0
- Percentile: 90.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.74419
- Patent Class: 65.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['15140031', '15647881', '14974038', '12448294', '10565134']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7073913500597788
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5044911127818901
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.68710132633199
- Mean Citation Score: 184.677268
- Max Citation Score: 270.80896
- Similarity Product: 237.5039705590057

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test