PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16142281
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-09
Publication Date: 2019-03
Patent Classification: ["198", "301000"]

Abstract:
A hydraulic actuator is provided within a belt-type agricultural conveyor for controlling the position of the tension roller of the conveyor belt, together with a hydraulic controller which supplies a controlled pressure of hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic actuator. In this manner, a consistent tension can be applied to the endless conveyor belt in an automated manner through a large range of movement so that the maintenance step of periodically removing a section of the belt as the belt stretches can be minimized in frequency. Furthermore, the endless belt is always operated at an optimum tension for extending the life of the belt. The hydraulic actuator also enables the tension to be removed from the belt in a simple manner by displacing a switch to remove tension from the belt whenever the conveyor is not in use for yet further extending the life of the conveyor belt.

Claim (Index 16):
An agricultural conveyor comprising:\n a main frame supported on wheels for rolling movement across a ground surface; a housing supported on the main frame, the housing including (i) a tube portion extending in a longitudinal direction at an upward slope from an inlet end of the tube portion to an outlet end of the tube portion and (ii) a pickup portion connected to the inlet end having an open top end; an endless conveyor belt received within the housing to define an upper run of the endless conveyor belt and a lower run of the endless conveyor belt below the upper run; a belt positioning assembly comprising a plurality of conveyor rollers supporting the endless conveyor belt to convey material from the open top end of the pickup portion of the housing to the outlet end of the tube portion of the housing; a drive motor having a rotary output; one of the conveyor rollers comprising a drive roller; a drive pulley connected to the drive roller for rotation together about an axis of the drive roller; a drive belt coupled between the rotary output of the drive motor and the drive pulley to transfer rotation from the rotary output of the drive motor to the drive roller connected to the drive pulley; a tension wheel engaging the drive belt and supported on the housing so as to be movable relative to the housing to vary tension applied to the drive belt; a hydraulic tension actuator operatively connected between the housing and the tension wheel such that extension and contraction of the hydraulic tension actuator displaces the tension wheel to vary a length of a path of the drive belt; and a hydraulic controller operatively connected to the hydraulic tension actuator so as to be arranged to supply a controlled pressure of hydraulic fluid to the hydraulic linear actuator corresponding to a prescribed tension of the drive belt.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 35.0
- Percentile: 97.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.0
- Patent Class: 198.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['12246015', '14390175', '14527991', '15488756', '14422090']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.743620086235443
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4675022481323864
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7160083024251374
- Mean Citation Score: 249.921154
- Max Citation Score: 254.17522
- Similarity Product: 210.6028125407624

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