Heated Windscreens and the "Ford Patent"

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AndyPK said:

It would make sense Busses having them. Imagine trying to clear a windscreen that size with just a blower fan.

As I posted earlier we never had heated windscreens between 85 and 98. I have literally had to scrape ice off the inside of the windscreen of a double decker and constantly wipe condensation because the blowers you speak of were useless as they hardly got warm.

Goudy

facade said:

Goudy said:

I seem to think Ford held the patent on the fine wire mesh system that was part of the laminate between the two pieces of glass. They called it Quickclear.

Other systems used things stuck on the inside/outside of the glass rather than laminated in it.

I think the patent has expired but don't forget, Ford owed other brands like Jaguar/Land Rover at the time they launched this, so it ended up on those models and of course they may well have sold a license for other manufacturers to use it. 

I had it on a Jag and it was a pain when it was dark and wet. It seems to cause oncoming headlights to dazzle and splinter off the wires.

Yes, but Ford didn't own Land Rover in the 1960s, and I'm not a patent Lawyer, but I didn't think you could patent something that was already in use (or I'm patenting the wheel ), the P6 rear screen from 1967 (he got it in 1970) and the buses I rode back in the 1970s most definitely used fine wiggly wires in the glass with like a silver tape joining them at the top, and another pair of tapes at the bottom separated in the middle and L shaped that took the tape went down to the lower edge of the glass and presumably out to make the connections. I can't vouch for the actual 1967 Land Rover offering, but the panels I saw in Craddocks in the 1980s were the same. 

It must have been some nuance in the construction method, a special material, or a specific application that they patented, but the information isn't available- I can't even find the patent number.

Which of course doesn't explain why no-one else could use the Land Rover method, any patent they had, or the patent they licensed would have expired before the 1990s. 

I've only ever bought 3 brand new unregistered cars, and I'd happily have paid another couple of hundred for a heated windscreen if the option had been available when I ordered them, but I'm probably in a group of 1 and everyone else really wanted the white instrument faces and driving lights that I couldn't care less about! 

You can't patent the wheel, but back in the day you might have come up with something new based on a wheel and patented that.

So in the early days wheels were solid and depending on use either had metal belts or solid rubber coverings.
Then someone came up with the pneumatic tyre. A rubber belt on the wheel filled with air and patented it. 

Then there were different patents on variations of that particular idea.
A detachable pneumatic tyre. A tyre filled with a bladder or inner tube, radials, run flats and so on.

Or as another example, there is a famous car "invention" that didn't get patented by Volvo but they didn't come up with the original notion either
The seat/safety belt, so I have read was invented by some glider pilot in the 1800's. (but I'm sure people were strapping themselves to things long before that).

Then the "automotive" seat belt was patented in the states in the 50's.

After which Volvo came up with the three point safety belt a few years later and actually decided not to patent it so everyone could use it freely.


It's the same with the heated screen or self clearing screen.
It started with aircraft in the 1940's. Someone came up with the idea of a coating sprayed on when the glass when it manufactured, obviously an expensive process.

Then elements were stuck to the glass and heated electrically which was far cheaper.

Then Ford came up with the idea of making that element very fine and trapping it inside a laminated piece of glass. They patented a new process for an older idea.

This new process of an older idea is nothing new, it goes on almost everyday.