Essilor Strikes Again

[erichwmack]

Chris Ryser you will love this one...
A short while ago I had an idea after reading about "self healing" artificial skin. I thought wouldn't it be great if an optical hard coat could be made to be "self healing", meaning it would self repair and fill in surfaces scratches. Well, I found out it could be a possibility with the right polymer formulation. Ha ha, silly me I thought I had tapped into a potential game changer and was performing patent searches and found none! I'm gonna be rich, right?! Well today I was searching again to make sure I was wasting my time and money.

Essilor BEAT ME TO IT! The patent was issued to them a month ago. And the patent is encompassing of all formulations "in spirit and scope". They will change the scratch coating industry forever when they release this product.
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...RS=PD/20140206
and
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2014...ransparent.htm

Ugh...back to the drawing board I guess

[Chris Ryser]

"A rather new and very interesting route for solving the problem of scratches and/or abrasion of organic glasses is to protect the lenses with coating layers able to repair themselves, i.e. coatings which would be able, when submitted to a simple physical treatment, to revert completely or partially to the initial non-scratched condition. The use of such self-healing coatings as clear top coats in the automotive industry has been described for example in US 2009/06453 and WO 2009/029641.

...........interesting, but now they got to invent a self healing AR coating which seems to be impossibe because of the SIO2 involved. You can still make your formula which might be different but better and they will buy it and use it or kill it, like many other ideas over time by many corporations.

Maybe you should develop a stripper for that material before it comes out. Patents cost a fortune plus heavy fees every year after filing for upkeep.

So you were too late. Next time you come up with something new find some backers to pay for the patents and the sell them to Essilor for a good profit

[erichwmack]

Yeah, thats a good idea. I was already thinking of the secondary products or opportunities.

[HindSight2020]

Yeah, thats a good idea. I was already thinking of the secondary products or opportunities.

Its pretty simple. They want to own every aspect of the entire ophthalmic world and have no competition in as many areas as possible. A difficult task but not impossible.

When a company is allowed to have that much power, it will only hurt our industry and through full vertical integration allow such a company to control the price point on every aspect of the supply chain.

Dont support it! Any ideas or inventions that are self proprietary in nature must be protected and not sold or handed to them.

[sharpstick777]

Actually, Corning had this ages ago. They had a sun lens line in the 1990's but it was very pricey. Strata? I think it was called. it was priced in the stratosphere though.

[Dave Metzger]

I believe corning's product was "Corlon? (sp) it was on glass lenses and the backside had the soft coating. You could press you fingernail in it and see the depression it made and then within 10 minutes it healed itself. They were advertised as a safety coating for glass. 1.0 centers on pre- chem hardened lenses, and if the lenses broke, would adhere to that backside coat. The product was gone quicker than emPower.

[chaoticneutral]

Neat idea. Will it ever see the light of day? The automotive finishing industry has had self healing paint for surface scratches for some time now. I don't see it as a stock option. Its going to be super expensive if they can figure it out but who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men......

[MikeAurelius]

IMO patents should only be issued if there is actually going to be a real product, and if the product fails in the marketplace, the patent should be abrogated.

Maybe that will cut down on patent trolls...

[shanbaum]

I believe corning's product was "Corlon? (sp) it was on glass lenses and the backside had the soft coating. You could press you fingernail in it and see the depression it made and then within 10 minutes it healed itself. They were advertised as a safety coating for glass. 1.0 centers on pre- chem hardened lenses, and if the lenses broke, would adhere to that backside coat. The product was gone quicker than emPower.

Corlon wasn't really a "coated" lens but a glass lens with a thin layer of polyurethane (maybe 0.2mm?) glued onto the back surface, primarily to provide impact resistance. The polyurethane wouldn't really "heal" - it wouldn't be damaged in the first place; it's inherently compressible. If you managed to tear the polyurethane (say, with a razor blade), it would stay torn. I don't think it was ever actually sold - just "previewed."

[Robert Martellaro]

Corlon wasn't really a "coated" lens but a glass lens with a thin layer of polyurethane (maybe 0.2mm?) glued onto the back surface, primarily to provide impact resistance. The polyurethane wouldn't really "heal" - it wouldn't be damaged in the first place; it's inherently compressible. If you managed to tear the polyurethane (say, with a razor blade), it would stay torn. I don't think it was ever actually sold - just "previewed."

Benson Optical Co., about 1982-83, acquired the equipment to process Corlon. I pushed back, hard, (during the presentation by CEO Keith West, in front of many people, I asked, "So, it's a gimmick?"), but he was convincing enough that I sold it to longtime glass photochromic wearers. The benefits were deceased weight and maybe a safety aspect. Sold it for about one year. I remember the thickness of the glass was about 1.5mm, the wafer about .5mm. or thereabouts.

[kentmitchell1961]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Georgia]

Maybe you should develop a stripper for that material before it comes out.

Well ,we do need more strippers.......... ;)

[SharonB]

Benson Optical Co., about 1982-83, acquired the equipment to process Corlon. I pushed back, hard, (during the presentation by CEO Keith West, in front of many people, I asked, "So, it's a gimmick?"), but he was convincing enough that I sold it to longtime glass photochromic wearers. The benefits were deceased weight and maybe a safety aspect. Sold it for about one year. I remember the thickness of the glass was about 1.5mm, the wafer about .5mm. or thereabouts.

I used Corlon lenses back in the day... they even had a photochromic option. BUT - edging was a pain. If the chuck pressure wasn't "just so" they would break, and the vinyl(?) back surface would peel off in the edgers available at the time. It was a nice idea.... but it bombed.