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The WRG Newsletter

ISSN 1530-8847 July 2004

New Material Patents: Finding LiTraCon

"How many poets does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to
curse the darkness, one to light a candle... and one to change the bulb."
- Anonymous

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The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. is featuring several new formulations of
concrete in their show "Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete". And the sculptures
of fiber-optic embedded, light-transmitting concrete blocks AKA LiTraCon are receiving lots
of press. By now, you have no doubt, seen the cool photos and read press releases or news articles
about the new light-transmitting concrete blocks called 'LiTraCon" by inventor Aron Losonczi.

Each article and press release I read had nearly the same wording about the manufacturing of the
blocks - "molded by hand" - which left me with a rather medieval image of monks forming
adobe bricks. That didn't jive with our century technology, so, I thought I'd look up the patent to see
how architect/inventor Aron Losconzi envisioned the manufacturing process. Now, a brief
note to all architects reading this - patent drawings usually are dismal examples of graphic style.
Not even the worst shop drawings can come close to some patent drawings I have seen. Also, bear in
mind that Losonczi's drawing may have been redone by someone at a patent office.1.

Many patent databases are 'for-fee'; but in this issue of the WRG Newsletter, we will look at a
free international patent database Espacenet, and briefly, how it can be navigated to find a
manufacturing process drawing within the building material patent for LiTraCon.  Go to
EspaceNet - Europe's Network of Patent Databases. Notice the navigation bar and tools on the
left side of the webpage and notice which ones are available for use. You will need to have
Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer to retrieve the (free) patent drawing files.

Using a broad keyword method, inputting concrete AND block AND fiber in the top search
window, retrieves a list that reads much like a low-carb diet menu: fiber-reinforced water-permeable
concrete block, aerated concrete building block, shock-absorbing block, steel fiber reinforced
concrete, glass fiber reinforced concrete block and concrete block with artificial fiber 'planted theron',
just to mention a few. Browsing through all these might be informative, but also will use up a lot of time.

The targeted way to locate Losonczi's patent in this database is by using an advanced search page that
isn't available on the front page (the unavailable binoculars). So, type any search term into any of the search
windows on the front page so that in the navigation bar on the left side of the retrieval page has
the black binoculars that turn blue when you place your cursor over the image. Click on the binoculars.
In this advanced search page we can use multiple terms in multiple fields to retrieve our targeted patent.

In the Title field, input some of the keywords that are in the news releases - such as light transmitting and in
the INVENTOR and/or APPLICANT field, type in 'losonczi' and hit 'SEARCH'. On the retrieval page, click
on the blue hotlink patent number (WO03097954). Note that there are buttons at the top of this page -
DESC, CLAIMS, PAGE 1, DRAWING. Click on DRAWING, and on this page, click on NEXT
(which for some inexplicable reason isn't on the previous page) to get the page with the inventors' drawing
on how LiTraCon is to be manufactured. If we read the Description (click on DESC button at top of page) and
the Claims, Aron tells us that the 'blocks are cast and that the fibers are laid in layers alternating with mechanical
pressure and/or vibration'. Regardless of the news releases, the manufacturing is definitely more mechanical than
'by hand'; and the mystery of how the 'by hand' process became part of the news article is a mystery for another day.

By the way, a search of similar patented materials and yields that the idea of light-transmitting concrete
building elements wasn't new . In 1958, J. Healey received patent number GB833009 for "light-transmitting
building elements" (AKA) windows with a 'pair of transparent closure members secured at the ends of a
cylindrical sleeve of asbestos and cement, encased in concrete". Well, this is vastly different than what
Losonczi invented, and reveals that building patents can be a source of ideas as well as information.

<>

References:

1. Kellogg, Craig. (2004, April 15). Space-Age Concrete Blocks that
Let You See the Light. The New York Times. pg. F.3

National Building Museum Exhibition 'Liquid Stone: New Architecture in Concrete'

LiTraCon

EspaceNet - Europe's Network of Patent Databases

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The WRG Newsletter (ISSN 1530-8847) is published by The Wallace Research Group.

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