PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16259577
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-01
Publication Date: 2019-05
Patent Classification: ["198", "778000"]

Abstract:
A spiral conveyor for positively driving a conveyor belt along a helical path. The spiral conveyor includes a rotating cylindrical tower with parallel drive members extending from the bottom to the top of the tower on its periphery. Each drive member includes an outwardly protruding ridge that varies in height from the bottom to the top of the tower. The variations in height facilitate the belt's entry onto and exit from the tower and robust, positive driving engagement with the inside edge of the belt along the majority of its path along the tower.

Claim (Index 8):
A spiral conveyor comprising:\n a drive tower rotatable about a vertical axis and having an outer periphery extending from a bottom to a top with a belt entrance at or near the bottom for an upgoing spiral or at or near the top for a downgoing spiral; a plurality of parallel outwardly projecting ridges on the drive tower extending in length from top ends to bottom ends at the periphery of the drive tower between the top and the bottom; wherein a first portion of the ridges is a constant first distance from the vertical axis and wherein a second portion of the ridges closer to the belt entrance tapers radially outwardly away from the vertical axis toward the belt entrance to a second distance from the vertical axis, wherein the second distance is greater than the first distance; a conveyor belt advancing up or down in a conveying direction along a helical conveying path around the outer periphery of the rotating cylindrical drive tower, the conveyor belt including a plurality of rows of belt modules having a top side and a bottom side and hingedly linked together between consecutive rows along hinge joints defining hinge axes extending perpendicular to the conveying direction from a first side edge of the rows to an opposite second side edge of the rows, wherein the hinge joints have play in the conveying direction to allow the rows to collapse together at the first side edge when the first side edge is at the inside of the helical conveying path, the first side edge of at least some of the rows including a tooth extending outwardly to a distal end and having a non-rotatable guide surface parallel to one of the hinge axes of the row and oriented to guide the bottom ends of the ridges in an upgoing spiral or the top ends of the ridges in a downgoing spiral into driving contact with the tooth to drive the conveyor belt in the conveying direction along the helical conveying path without slip.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 2.0
- Percentile: 99.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.81818
- Patent Class: 198.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['14386036', '13805608', '16011031', '12834314', '15224809']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.7975948350188807
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5943733756119414
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.7772726890781868
- Mean Citation Score: 465.425552
- Max Citation Score: 578.0956
- Similarity Product: 509.0635629520178

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

Dataset: test