Saturday, March 12, 2016

Analysis of Tea Bag Patent

Keeping on the tea obsession theme I will now analyze some claims and aspects of the tea bag patent (US 20030170345 A1). There was an original patent published in the 1940s by Doble Ralph N which mapped out the classic and old-time version of the tea bag (US 2187417 A) in which inventor Te Sheng Wang was inspired. Her new patent is entitled the "Structure of a Tea Bag" and the abstract begins by stating "an improved structure of a tea bag is disclosed." This patent only has 3 claims which will be analyzed below.

Claims
Analysis
1. An improved structure of a tea bag having a bag body containing appropriate amount of tea leaves and a cotton thread connected with a tab at one end, the other end of the cotton thread being positioned at one side of the top face of the bag body, characterized in that the bag body is corrugated which can be extended and the bag body is made from higher porosity and hydrophilic paper, and the top face of the bag body is a first porous face with loosen pores, and the center of the bag body is a second porous face with further loosen pores, thereby, the bag body provides an effective way of brewing tea.
A new and improved tea bag that maximizes the amount of leaves inside a new pouch made of a material with higher porosity and hydrophilic paper. There are three layers of porous paper and each further loosens the tealeaves to make the best cuppa!
2. The tea bag of claim 1, wherein the top face of the bag body is provided with only a first porous face, facilitating the fabricating process of the tea bag.
The first of the three layers is a porous material that allows the water to initially loosen the tealeaves before infiltrating the next layers.
3. The tea bag of claim 1, wherein the configuration of the bag body is a square base body, hexagonal shape base body and an octagonal shape base body so as to fully utilize the capacity of the bag body.
There are three variety’s of the porous tea bags; hexagon base, octagon shape, and square base that maximize space to tealeaf ratio.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Harley,

    I really enjoyed reading your post! I use tea bags nearly every day and would never have thought about the technicalities behind the patent of a tea bag. What's interesting is that this is a technology that doesn't seem to have evolved much over time. I found the structure of your post to be very helpful - the balance of the introduction, claim and analysis of claim was great! Maybe in the future you could talk about if and/or how you think this technology might change in the future? Great post!

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  2. Hey Harley,

    Great post! I loved the presentation of diagrams alongside the analysis. It really helped convey the important details, and the highlighting really brought out important points. I was surprised to learn that this invention had 3 claims, for such a deceptively simple invention.

    Great job!

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  3. Hey Harley,

    What an informative explanation for such a simple design! You really helped me further understand the underlying dynamics that take place within this redesigned, effective tea bag. Next time, you could even explain how the original intrinsically differs from this new design! You must love tea, are you English? Great job :)

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