HSP Examples: Patents
Filing a patent is relatively expensive in time and effort; defending it can be even more costly. Patents can also reveal a lot to competitors and it may not be so easy to police infringers. So in the long-term companies learn when to file or to not file, and when to reveal what might have given them an advantage in coming up with the invention.
The fact that HSP are included in a large number of patents spanning decades, and are still being included at a high rate in 2016 says a lot about the usefulness of HSP. If they didn't work, they wouldn't be included in so many patents. How many? A search for the phrase "Hansen Solubility Parameters" in Google Patent Search results in more than 20,000 hits!
A similar search for "HSPiP Hansen" reveals >500 patents that cite the Hansen Solubility Parameters in Practice package. On Hiroshi's Japanese-language Pirika pages he regularly cites recent HSP-based patents. His many loyal corporate readers find these citations very useful as they spark fresh ideas within their own corporations.
Charles' career has seen many patents generated for his clients, some with him as a named author, some without. From these patents many large (OK, huge) businesses have developed, along with plenty of modest but successful ones. The list that follows may or may not have benefitted from Charles' input, but has certainly benefitted from HSP science:
- Novel polymer and reaction solvents for contact lenses
- Safer solvent blends for cleaning printing inks (see image)
- New types of protective gloves for workers
- Novel plasticisers for green polymers
- New flexographic inks with zero release to the atmosphere for high-speed multi-colour printing
- High-speed DNA hybridisation for diagnostics
- New treatments for acne
- Many cosmetics examples from the major manufacturers
- Effective skin delivery of pharmaceuticals
- Numerous paints/laquers patents
- Novel ink-jet formulations
- New solvent blends for manufacture of "insoluble" polymers
- Novel solvent blends for removing fingernail polish
- Making white UV-cured coatings without white pigments