PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 15899492
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-02
Publication Date: 2018-08
Patent Classification: ["404", "084050"]

Abstract:
An asphalt paving machine includes a drive system that is operated to move the paving machine across a surface to be paved, an asphalt receiving hopper which is adapted to receive asphalt paving material and a distributing auger. A hopper conveyor, which is adapted to transport the asphalt paving material from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, includes a hopper conveyor motor and a speed sensor that is associated with the hopper conveyor motor. A vertically-adjustable flow gate that is associated with the hopper conveyor defines the size of the gate opening from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, and a flow gate position sensor is adapted to determine the vertical position of the flow gate. A controller includes a timer and is operatively connected to the drive system for moving the paving machine, to the speed sensor for the hopper conveyor motor and to the flow gate position sensor. The controller uses a machine speed signal, a conveyor speed signal and a flow gate signal to measure the amount of asphalt paving material delivered to the distributing auger per unit of time.

Claim (Index 11):
An asphalt paving machine comprising:\n (a) a drive system that is operated to move the paving machine across a surface to be paved; (b) an asphalt receiving hopper which is adapted to receive asphalt paving material, said asphalt receiving hopper being defined by:\n (i) a left sidewall; \n (ii) a right sidewall; \n (iii) a left rear wall; and \n (iv) a right rear wall; \n (c) a distributing auger; (d) a left hopper conveyor that is adapted to transport the asphalt paving material from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, said left hopper conveyor comprising:\n (i) a left hopper conveyor motor; \n (ii) a speed sensor that is associated with the left hopper conveyor motor and adapted to measure the rate of rotation of the left hopper conveyor motor; \n (iii) a vertically-adjustable left flow gate that is located adjacent the left rear wall of the asphalt receiving hopper and is adapted to define the size of the left gate opening from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, said left flow gate further comprising a left flow gate position sensor that is adapted to determine the vertical position of the left flow gate; \n (e) a right hopper conveyor that is adapted to transport the asphalt paving material from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, said right hopper conveyor comprising:\n (i) a right hopper conveyor motor; \n (ii) a speed sensor that is associated with the right hopper conveyor motor and adapted to measure the rate of rotation of the right hopper conveyor motor; \n (iii) a vertically-adjustable right flow gate that is located adjacent the right rear wall of the asphalt receiving hopper and is adapted to define the size of the right gate opening from the asphalt receiving hopper to the distributing auger, said right flow gate further comprising a right flow gate position sensor that is adapted to determine the vertical position of the right flow gate; \n (f) a controller including a timer, said controller being:\n (i) operatively connected to the drive system for moving the paving machine across the surface to be paved and adapted to receive a machine speed signal indicating the speed at which the paving machine is moving across the surface to be paved; \n (ii) operatively connected to the speed sensor that is associated with the left hopper conveyor motor and adapted to receive a left conveyor speed signal indicating the speed of the left hopper conveyor; \n (iii) operatively connected to the left flow gate position sensor and adapted to receive a left flow gate signal indicating the vertical position of the left flow gate; \n (iv) operatively connected to the speed sensor that is associated with the right hopper conveyor motor and adapted to receive a right conveyor speed signal indicating the speed of the right hopper conveyor; \n (v) operatively connected to the right flow gate position sensor and adapted to receive a right flow gate signal indicating the vertical position of the right flow gate; \n (vi) adapted to use the machine speed signal, the left conveyor speed signal, the left flow gate signal, the right conveyor speed signal and the right flow gate signal to measure the amount of asphalt paving material delivered to the distributing auger per unit of time.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 24.0
- Percentile: 88.0
- Lexical Diversity: 3.09375
- Patent Class: 404.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14563258', '13525455', '14881794', '11372725', '15592498']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7724638263281421
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.527981649874894
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7480156086828174
- Mean Citation Score: 331.386818
- Max Citation Score: 365.78842
- Similarity Product: 302.36609878274675

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