PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15878167
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-01
Publication Date: 2018-05
Patent Classification: ["065", "029110"]

Abstract:
In illustrative implementations of this invention, a crucible kiln heats glass such that the glass becomes or remains molten. A nozzle extrudes the molten glass while one or more actuators actuate movements of the nozzle, a build platform or both. A computer controls these movements such that the extruded molten glass is selectively deposited to form a 3D glass object. The selective deposition of molten glass occurs inside an annealing kiln. The annealing kiln anneals the glass after it is extruded. In some cases, the actuators actuate the crucible kiln and nozzle to move in horizontal x, y directions and actuate the build platform to move in a z-direction. In some cases, fluid flows through a cavity or tubes adjacent to the nozzle tip, in order to cool the nozzle tip and thereby reduce the amount of glass that sticks to the nozzle tip.

Claim (Index 1):
An apparatus comprising:\n (a) a crucible kiln that includes heating elements; (b) a nozzle; (c) an annealing kiln; (d) a build platform that is located inside the annealing kiln; and (e) a set of actuators that are configured (1) to cause the crucible kiln and the nozzle to move horizontally relative to the annealing kiln and to remain stationary relative to each other, and (2) to cause the build platform to move vertically relative to the nozzle; wherein (i) the heating elements of the crucible kiln are configured to melt and fine glass material in the crucible kiln, to produce a molten glass material, (ii) the apparatus is configured to cause the molten glass material to undergo an extruding, in which the molten glass is extruded through the nozzle to form an object, in such a way that\n (A) the molten glass material is, while exiting the nozzle, located inside the annealing kiln, and \n (B) during the extruding\n (I) temperature in the crucible kiln is higher than temperature in the annealing kiln, \n (II) the object being formed rests on the build platform inside the annealing kiln, and \n (III) the crucible kiln is positioned above and exterior to the annealing kiln, such that the molten glass material travels downward from the crucible kiln, through the nozzle, and into the annealing kiln.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 38.0
- Percentile: 86.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.06579
- Patent Class: 65.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15365577', '15275849', '14575336', '14848006', '11878625']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7023397183328738
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5594165503256621
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6880474015321526
- Mean Citation Score: 206.916792
- Max Citation Score: 415.3454
- Similarity Product: 313.9561324842691

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