21st January , 2012
22-note harmonium granted patent
An India harmonium player has been granted a patent for developing a unique harmonium with 22 shrutis — fractional notes or microtones. Thane-based Dr Vidyadhar Oke received the patent for his ‘Improved Harmonium’ from the Indian Patent Office in December 2011, five years after he filed for the patent. Dr Oke, who wished to prove that every microtone could be identified scientifically and played on a harmonium, was a pharmacologist earlier and give up his job pursue research in music.
Artisans from Haribhau Vishwanath Company, manufacturers and exporters of Indian musical instruments helped Dr Oke in making the improved harmonium. The frequency of each microtone was assessed and the harmonium was built with additional gaps that would allow wind to pass through the leather diaphragm creating the missing microtones.
A usual harmonium has 12 shrutis, and cannot provide all the gradations of ragas in the Indian classical music. A complete octave (sa, re, ga, ma…) has seven notes plus 15 microtones.
Trademark sought for Kolaveri Di
The first line of the super hit song "Why this kolaveri di..." sung by actor Dhanush for a Tamil film '3' is on its way to be trademarked. Sony Music Entertainment India, which recorded the Tamil-English song, wishes to use the now-famous phrase as a brand to prevent others from misusing it.
A first of its kind in the Indian music industry, Sony Music filed for trademark registration of this YouTube hit in Mumbai last December under Class 9 and Class 41. This would allow Sony to launch products like CDs, cassettes and SD cards including film and non-film entertainment content and talent discovery programmes with the brand "why this kolaveri di".
This song has received more than 20 million hits on YouTube and many different versions of the song in several languages are being added to the list. This will be the first song in India to have its first line trademarked.
Nokia sells Wireless and Video Patents to Sisvel
Nokia has sold 450 wireless and video patents and patent applications to Sisvel International, an Italian patent licensing company. The patents which were acquired for an undisclosed amount cover technologies used in GSM, 3G and LTE (Long Term Evolution) mobile devices, including in video encoding optimization systems.
Nokia will retain a license to use one-sixtieth of its portfolio of pending and granted patents. Sisvel is building a "patent pool" for LTE wireless systems. The company already operates a patent pool for the DVB-T digital TV broadcast system, and manages licensing for the patents on MP3 and MPEG Audio compression systems.
Nokia is still licensed under the portfolio as part of the deal, and would not have to pay Sisvel to access the patents the company has sold off to Sisvel. Nokia still owns more than 30,000 patents and patent applications.
KBL gets JALVERTER trademark for solar inverter
Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL), a global fluid management company has been granted the trademark JALVERTER by the Office of the Registrar of Trade Marks India.
JALVERTER is used for the novel Solar Power Conditioning Unit which is the core of Kirloskar Solar Pumping System / Power Pack.
This solar inverter takes the varying DC power by solar PV modules as input and converts into 3 phase Space Vector Pulse Width Modulated AC with varying frequency, depending on changing intensities of the sun. It makes the solar PV module operate at the maximum efficiency point, tapping max power output attained by the MPPT (Max Power Point Tracking) unit in the Jalverter.
Tirumala, Srisailam to get Bio-diversity heritage status
The famous hill shrines of Tirumala and Srisailam will be declared as biodiversity heritage sites this year. The UN Convention on Biodiversity to be held in October this year in Hyderabad is the likely venue where an announcement in this regard is anticipated.
Once these sites are declared as a biodiversity heritage sites, any sort of construction activity in the neighborhood of temple area would require environmental clearance from the central government.
Both Tirumala and Srisailam have rich population of rare species of animals, birds and medicinal plants, including many endangered species of birds and animals. Biodiversity heritage parks would be set up in both temple towns to take care of endangered species.
US trademark for Dragon fruit
The red dragon fruit, traditionally seen as a lucky charm has been certified for its trademark by the United States Patent and Trademarks Office. The certified trademark includes the words "Binh Thuan" and "Dragon fruit", and the fruit's image. The certificate owned by the provincial Department of Science and Technology, will be valid for the next ten years starting from the date of application on December 14, 2009, and can be extended for successive 10 year periods.
The fruit rich in vitamin C is believed to confer good health to its consumers. Binh Thuan is Vietnam's largest dragon fruits producer with exports to Asia, the US, Europe markets, Japan, the Republic of Korea, with China account for nearly 70 percent of market share.
