July Patents

Patent News as compile by the editors of Rubber World Magazine for July 2024

Rubber composition for a vehicle part
U.S. patent: 11,851,554
Issued: December 26, 2023
Inventors: Sung Hyun Lee and Heon Seob Jung
Assigned: Hyundai Motor and Kia
Key statement: Disclosed is a rubber composition including a copolymer
including polyethylene, α-olefin, and non-conjugated polyene; natural
rubber; a filler; and a coupling agent, a vehicle part including the same, and
a vehicle including the same. The rubber bushing composition includes the
components uniformly dispersed such that compatibility and physical
properties thereof can be improved. Further, a product (e.g., vehicle part)
obtained from the rubber bushing composition can have superior heat
resistance, fatigue resistance, and compression set resistance.

Tire pressure monitoring system including tire side and vehicle side devices
U.S. patent: 11,833,862 Issued: December 5, 2023
Inventors: Yoichiro Suzuki and Takatoshi Sekizawa
Assigned: Denso
Key statement: A tire side device includes a vibration detection unit that
outputs a detection signal according to a magnitude of vibration of a tire, an
air pressure detection unit that detects the tire pressure, a data acquisition
unit that calculates a contact length of the tire with a road surface based on
the detection signal and acquires wheel load data that is data related to the
wheel load based on the contact length and a data transmission unit that
transmits data related to the tire pressure and the wheel load data. A
vehicle side device includes a receiving unit that receives data on tire
pressure and wheel load data, a threshold setting unit that sets an alarm
threshold for tire pressure based on the wheel load data and an alarm
determination unit that determines that the tire pressure has decreased
when the tire pressure indicated by the data on the tire pressure decreases
below the alarm threshold.

Method of producing an article comprising a rubber-like film based article firmly fixed to a substrate
U.S. patent: 11,833,765
Issued: December 5, 2023
Inventors: Nikolaas Van Dijk, Thorsten Gurke and Philippe Henderson
Assigned: Cariflex PTE
Key statement: The present invention relates to a method including a
rubberlike film based article of which at least a portion is firmly fixed to a
substrate. The method includes providing a film based article made of a
non-crosslinked thermoplastic rubber, contacting at least a portion of the
film based article with a substrate so as to form a contact area between the
film based article and the substrate and heat sealing at least a portion of the
contact area at a temperature of 190 to 250°C for at least 1 second.

Butyl rubber additives for improved tire tread performance
U.S. patent: 11,834,536
Issued: December 5, 2023
Inventors: Edward J. Blok, Anthony J. Dias, Paul T.Q. Nguyen and Erick E.
Wurzinger
Assigned: ExxonMobil Chemical
Key statement: An elastomeric composition is disclosed. The elastomeric
composition includes, per 100 parts by weight of rubber (phr): about 30 to
about 50 phr of polybutadiene having a cis-1,4 linkage content of at least
95%; about 40 to about 70 phr of styrene/ butadiene copolymer; about 0 to
about 20 phr of natural rubber or polyisoprene; about 0 to about 30 phr of a
processing oil; about 10 to about 30 phr of a hydrocarbon resin; about 50 to
about 75 phr of a filler; a curative agent; an antioxidant; a silane coupling
agent; and about 5 to about 30 phr of a butyl copolymer rubber containing
about 85 to about 99.5 mol % C4-C7 isoolefin(s) and from about 0.5 to about
15 mol % C4-C14 conjugated dienes.

Rubber composition for stiffness
U.S. patent: 11,851,553
Issued: December 26, 2023
Inventors: George Jim Papakonstantopoulos and Bruce Raymond Hahn
Assigned: Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Key statement: A rubber composition for incorporation in an engineered
article comprises, based on 100 parts by weight (phr) ethylene-propylenediene copolymer (EPDM) elastomer, from about 5 phr to about 100 phr
reinforcing filler preferably comprising a prehydrophobated precipitated
silica. In the contemplated embodiment, the EPDM has a diene content that
is greater than five percent (5%). The diene also contains branching.

Rubber composition for tire and studless tire
U.S. patent: 11,845,866
Issued: December 19, 2023
Inventor: Hirokazu Kageyama, Kazushi Kimura, Satoshi Mihara and Yutaro
Yamamoto
Assigned: Yokohama Rubber
Key statement: The present technology provides a rubber composition
including: 100 parts by mass of a diene rubber, from 30 to 100 parts by
mass of carbon black and/or a white filler, from 1 to 20 parts by mass of
silicone based microparticles that have an average particle size from 5 to
500 μm and that are three-dimensionally crosslinked, from 0.1 to 10 parts
by mass of a nonionic surfactant and from 1 to 20 parts by mass of
thermally expanding microcapsules.

RFID systems for use with tires
U.S. patent: 11,842,243
Issued: December 12, 2023
Inventor: Ian J. Forster
Assigned: Avery Dennison Retail Information Services
Key statement: Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for use with
tires include a stud comprising reactive strap technology including an RFID
chip and conductor. The stud is configured so as to be connected to a tire
and to provide near field communication. The stud also may be coupled to
an antenna structure to provide a far field RFID tag. The stud may
unintentionally move with respect to the antenna structure during use, so
the antenna structure may be configured to accommodate such movement
without a change in the tuning of the RFID tag. A multi-antenna label may be
provided to allow for selective coupling of the stud to a particular antenna,
with differently configured tires being coupled to different antennas of the
same type of multi-antenna label, which allows for the same label
configuration to be used with a wider variety of tires.

Rubber band gun, method of use, and method of assembly
U.S. patent: 11,841,207
Issued: December 12, 2023
Inventor: Brent A. Eudaly
Assigned: Elastic Precision
Key statement: A toy gun having a pair of sides are joined together using a
number of pins inserted through pin holes passing through the pair of
sides. A trigger and a slide are sandwiched between the pair of sides and
are secured therein. A pivot pin allows the trigger to be pulled rearwardly
such that it presses against the slide, moving it rearward as well. When this
occurs, the slide moves out from between the two sides, pushing the elastic
bands away from static notches located on the rear end of the sides. This
causes the top-most elastic band to fire away from the gun and the
remaining elastic bands to be reseated upwardly into the next adjacent
respective static notch. The elastic bands pull the trigger back into its
original position, allowing for semi-automatic firing.

Polybutene derivative for rubber compounding and rubber composition including same
U.S. patent: 11,851,555
Issued: December 26, 2023
Inventors: Min Sup Park, Myeong Seok Kim and Se Hyun Lee
Assigned: DL Chemical
Key statement: Disclosed is a polybutene derivative for rubber
compounding. The polybutene derivative includes 30% to 98% by weight of
polyisobutylene, 1% to 35% by weight of unsaturated dicarboxylic
anhydride, and 1% to 50% by weight of at least one selected from among
alkanolamines, amine based compounds and polyhydric alcohols. When the
polybutene derivative is added as an additive for rubber, the polybutene
derivative dramatically improves the dispersibility of a filler and improves
both the grip performance and the rolling resistance at the same time.