Paging Mr. Ruhnke...

Constantin

... and the following sectional pump diagram popped up in their non-US line of pumps.

I presume your patent only covers the US? Has Grundfos approached you re: licensing it? Great minds seem to think alike... congrats!

John Ruhnke

My patents are only good for US and Canada...........

I'm not sure if that design violates my patents but it doesn't matter because my patents are only good for the U.S. and Canada. Well they say that the greatest compliment to an Inventor is when someone copies them.

John Ruhnke

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hydronicsmike

is just....

...that a compliment doesnt put food into your stomach.

DanHolohan

I saw that pump at ISH Frankfurt

in 1993.

John Ruhnke

My patent covers...................

Dan,

Yes there have been other air purging circulators before. Taco had the 008v. I have a casting of one. I also think that I have the casting for the grundfos in this picture. I pulled it off of a european Condensing Boiler. It most likely predates my patents.

My first patent covers the Autopurgers ability to universally fit inbetween a set of existing circulator flanges. It will retrofit into 95% of existing piping arrangements without the need to repipe. Here are some info that makes my first patent valuable. It is the combination of things that count.

1) The two pump flanges are at a width of 6 3/8ths inches to line up with existing flanges in the field.

2) The flanges are forward on the casting so that the Autopurger can go into piping up close against a wall.

3) The Autopurger has 4 holes 90 degrees apart so that the pump can be installed into any horizantal or vertical installation in any direction.

4) the flanges rotate on the autopurger to make installation easier.

My second patent covers the conical shape of the third prototype needed to fit a large seperation chamber with a shape that allows pitch to the air vent.

John Ruhnke



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John Ruhnke

Independent Idea........

Dan,

I came up with the idea for an air eliminating Circulator totally on my own. I paid a patent attourney $450.00 to do a patent search. He found nothing. I then had my patent written, built a prototype and showed Taco. Taco loved it!! They wanted to sign an option. Sometime inbetween the option and Taco loving it I found out about the 008v. I had another patent search done by a pro search firm at the Main patent office. They found a bunch of patents on air eliminating circulators. Mine was as different from the others as they were from me and each other. So I decided to go forward with the project because of heavy interest from Taco. Also I recieved a Grant from the state of Connecticut and wasn't going to turn down free money. Taco had heavy interest even after I disclosed the other patents. 5 years later they still never signed on the dotted line. I went into negociations with them many times.

A big company with its own R & D firm has success with 1 out of three projects. They will invest a lot of money in all three projects. They invest way more then what I have invested in my projects. I am now on my third project. I call it Overall Heating Efficiency and the project is going very well. I think this project will be my one in three. I think I am going to make it this time. I do know that Overall Heating Efficiency will save the world an average of 80 billion dollars a year in fuel bills.

John Ruhnke

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