A Patent

[R.I.D.E.]

Initial examination by the Patent Office has resulted in 5 of 6 claims being approved conditional on some corrections in the drawings and modifying the claims to be independent of the first claim which was rejected based on a prior patent granted in 1891 (not a typo).

This means basically that the act of granting or rejecting has passed, granting a Patent based on my attorney and myself correcting some small technical details and releasing the approved claims from their dependency on the rejected claim. The merit portion of consideration has been accomplished.
My attorney told me.

"Congratulations"

It's almost unheard of to see any approval on the initial phase of examination of a patent. In most cases it is a long drawn out process, which I went through with the first patent application which I finally abandoned after an expensive appeals process.

It's been 6 years to reach the point where a US Patent Issued for my design, is actually a reality.

$30,000 and 6 years later I may actually succeed.

The next step after the Patent is issued is to build a working prototype. Much of that work has been done, but it needs some more modification. Nothing to difficult, but it will probably still need a few more dollars (think thousands).

Investors have made it clear that they are only interested if we have the Patent and a working prototype that demonstrates the principle effectively.

The dream of a lifetime may actually come to fruition before I die of old age. I still want Pop to ride in my R.I.D.E. power train equipped car. He is 88 and doing pretty good. He rode down to the local beach Saturday and sat on the seawall and watched the pretty girls walk by. My wife, daughter, and two grand kids saw him there.

Mom wasn't very happy .

When I read the communication from the attorney, my wife saw a tear running down from my left eye. I think she understood more about me in that instant in time, than in the last 20 years we have been married.

Wish me luck!

regards
gary

[low&slow]

Gary,
Congratulations on achieving this major milestone! I have followed your project with great interest and wish you all the best in getting it into production. I think it offers great potential to move our country forward away from Middle East oil dependency. Its great to see someone like yourself who puts their heart and soul into their work receive the recognition and rewards that they deserve. Thank you for keeping us posted on new developments. We wish for all the best for you in this effort.
L&S

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Woohoo, congrats, I hear most of the truly original ideas especially if highly technical are getting bounced first go these days, just 'coz the examiners are too dumb to know whether it will work or not..

[GasSavers_Erik]

Wow, that sounds great. Congrats!

I hope everything works out and then in the future everyone here can say, "Yeah, I was a member of a website/discussion forum with the inventor of that new hydraulic drive system".

[bobc455]

Like the others, my most heartfelt congratulations!

-Bob C.

[bowtieguy]

congrats! i sincerely hope you are alive to see your blood, sweat, and tears(not to mention $$$) come to FULL harvest such that it is mass produced!

[GasSavers_BEEF]

there are many that chase their dream in this world, but very few that make it a reality.

one day we may see the hydraulic-hybrid in a vehicle on our street.

all my dreams (though not near as ambitious) all seem to die in the long run.

congrats man.

[R.I.D.E.]

Thanks gents and ladies (if applicable). It's funny the way things happen. The first thing I ever read about extreme mileage, was 39 years ago when I read about an Opel Kadett wagon getting 124 MPG. The only mods were disconnecting the second barrel of the carb and replacing the bias ply tires with radials.

Pulsed to 45 MPH and then glide with engine shut off down to 15 MPH, third gear bump start and repeat. The contest required an average speed of 26MPH.

I actually stumbled onto the basic R.I.D.E. concept almost by mistake. I was playing Red Baron 3D online with a small but dedicated community of enthusiasts. They had a get together at Old Rheinbeck Aerodrome, near Kingston NY in 2000. Met about 85 people and looked at a Rotary engine (original) on a static display at the Museum. Watched one flying in a replica Sopwith Camel, prop spinning with the engine block. Between a close inspection of the static display and watching one run and flying in a plane. I was amazed at how long the prop kept spinning after the ignition had been killed when the plane landed.

The first drawings were witnessed by 14 different people, mostly relatives. The document is dated August 5th, 2003. Originally I focused on the engine part of the concept, with an adjustable stroke to allow the engine to transform itself into a free spinning flywheel for short term energy storage, and a Continuously Variable Transmission to allow the engine to be pulsed to a set speed (using fuel) then destroked and the inertia stored in the flywheel to keep the vehicle at a constant speed while the CVT ratios constantly adjusted to maintain velocity at a constant rate.

No one wanted to even consider the concept, I have been rejected by virtually every manufacturer and government agency you could imagine, numbering literally in the hundreds, maybe more than a thousand. How could a high school graduate with no higher learning conceive something when there are so many much more qualified to do so?

After 2 years of beating my head against the wall, I decided to build a small model that demonstrated the principle I was trying to present. Even the group at Tech told me the concept is almost impossible to explain without some visual evidence.

The small model was easier to make without connecting rods, so it was done that way. Purely coincidentally it was possible to reverse the pistons and cylinders since each end was a simple eyelet for a screen porch spring. Once I had reversed the pistons and cylinders and eliminated the connecting rods, I realized that those two changes were, in actuality, distinct improvements over the original design.

It also became evident that the design could now be incorporated into an in-wheel Infinitely Variable Transmission, capable of driving a car with only the pressure from a charged accumulator.

Since power train improvements do not have the emission issues of a new engine design, the power train path became the focus of my energies. After several trips to Detroit Michigan to meet with representatives of Ricardo and Next Energy. I learned from a gentleman named Ryan Waddington, that my best pathway to success would be to focus on a hydraulic launch assist axle that could be incorporated into an existing vehicle. This would provide regenerative launch assist for an otherwise conventional FWD small passenger car. Sadly Ryan left Next Energy within two weeks of our first meeting when he told me my presentation at Ricardo was one of the best demonstrations he had ever seen.

What no one seemed to realize was if you had a launch assist axle, it could also be a constant speed drive using the same accumulator and pulsing the engine to recharge the accumulator, so it is not only launch assist but a means to pulse and glide while maintaining a constant vehicle speed, which is the real solution to huge mileage gains, beyond regenerative braking itself.

That was over 3 years ago.

Even as late as two weeks ago, while searching the Internet I discovered something that was like getting punched in the gut by Mike Tyson. It was a water engine designed by a man named Arthur Rigg, in the 1880's. When I first saw the Rigg Water Engine design, it was the day Farrah and Michael died. I felt like a plagiarist and wrote the Professor at Tech an email apologizing for wasting his and the students time.

He replied and told me such was not really the case and he wanted to continue his research next year. Most mechanical designs today are derived from designs from decades, even centuries ago. You can see the Rigg Water Engine by searching google under advanced search with that exact title.

Mr. Rigg was the head of the Royal Society of Engineers in England in the late nineteenth century. His design was very good. Sadly it was surpassed by hydroelectric turbines and electrical generation and distribution of power, which surpassed power being supplied to industry using central steam engines and water pumped at high pressure (600+ PSI). Water engines are still used today in some applications in Great Britain. One example is a siren that comes on when the sprinkler system is activated by heat. The water running through the sprinkler runs a small water engine that spins the siren rotor. The system requires no electricity to function.

Einstein once said genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Believe me the more important part of the two is the boneheaded persistence and the attitude of "Never Surrender", and keep fighting until your last breath.

I am no Genius by any stretch of the imagination, just an old country boy who worked on cars until he was so beat up he just couldn't do it any more.
One spark of inspiration, the adjustable journal, was the key to the whole process. It may eventually be successful, I certainly hope so, but the battle is not yet won. It does seem like the most intense part of the war is won, but you never know.

My advice to those who share the dream of leaving this planet a better place, than we found it:

Never quit
Never Surrender
Never stop listening to encouragement and criticism, to a point.

Even if my dream never gets to the point where I am compensated for the effort and hopefully a little more, the concept is the most important thing. The more people who understand the potential the sooner we all will realize the benefit.

regards gary