The patent record, person by person — a residence record in three industrial lines

2001–2018 GRANTS VERIFIED · INVENTOR RESIDENCE, GRANGER, INDIANA

The carbon-brake line (Honeywell). The densest cluster belongs to the carbon-carbon aircraft-brake programme of Honeywell International, whose works stand in South Bend. Mark L. La Forest of Granger is the line's most prolific named inventor: U.S. Patent 7,438,839 B2, granted 21 October 2008, claims a formulation for manufacturing carbon-carbon composite material — chopped carbon fibres bound with pitch and activated carbon, moulded into an annular brake-disc preform; U.S. Patent 8,268,207, granted 18 September 2012, claims densification of carbon-carbon composites with pitches followed by chemical vapour infiltration and deposition; U.S. Patent 8,003,026 claims pitch-only densification of the same composites. He is a named co-inventor earlier still on U.S. Patent 6,521,152 B1, granted 18 February 2003, a method for forming fibre-reinforced composite parts, with Michael D. Wood of South Bend and others. Slawomir T. Fryska of Granger stands beside him across the line, including U.S. Patent 9,709,109 B2, granted 18 July 2017, which claims a way of preventing carbon anti-oxidant migration by limiting surface porosity, and U.S. Patent 10,022,890 B2, granted 17 July 2018, claiming in-situ carbonisation of resin to form carbon-carbon composite — by then La Forest's address had moved to Theresa, New York, while Fryska, David Flask and Jeffrey Troester still printed Granger. Neil Murdie of Granger, 46530, is a co-inventor through the same programme, his name carrying the European family members (EP 2 103 832 B1, grant mentioned 4 April 2012) alongside La Forest and, in the wider family, fellow Granger residents Akshay Waghray and Todd M. Menzie. What these patents actually claimed is process, not product romance: how to get pitch and vapour into a woven carbon preform until it becomes a brake disc that can stop an airliner. Done in South Bend's plant; invented, on the faces, by men who drove home to Granger.

The glucose-sensor line (Bayer, now Ascensia). Andrew J. Edelbrock of Granger is a named inventor on the electrochemical blood-glucose test-sensor family assigned to Bayer HealthCare: U.S. Patent 6,841,052 B2, granted 11 January 2005, an electrochemical-sensor design; U.S. Patent 7,122,110 B2, granted 17 October 2006, an electrochemical sensor for determining an analyte in a fluid sample; and U.S. Patent 7,125,481 B2, granted 24 October 2006, of the same family. His published applications run on through 2014 — transient-decay amperometry that reads a sample without waiting for Cottrell decay, reduced-sample-volume sensors, auto-calibration, laser-ablated electrodes. Michael J. Pugia of Granger, in the same diagnostics house under Bayer and then Siemens, holds U.S. Patent 7,435,381 B2, granted 14 October 2008, claiming packaging for microfluidic devices — micro-reservoirs that hold moisture loss under ten percent across shelf life — with applications behind it on specimen entry, centrifugal fluid handling and predictive kidney-disease diagnostics. These are the patents inside the glucose meter in a million bathroom cabinets; their inventors' home addresses are this ground, their benches were not.

The university line (Notre Dame) is carried whole in the breakthroughs article below; its anchor is Malcolm J. Fraser Jr. of Granger and the piggyBac patents, U.S. 6,218,185 of 17 April 2001 and its family. Around the granted core stands a penumbra this section prints at application strength only, because no grant was verified for them: Alexander S. Mukasyan of Granger, Notre Dame research professor of combustion synthesis, named on published applications for combustion synthesis of graphene (published 25 December 2014), sub-micron silicon-carbide powder and fibre-to-metal bonding; Prashant V. Kamat of Granger, Notre Dame's Zahm Professor, on nanomaterial scaffolds for photoelectrochemical cells; Paul J. McGinn of Granger on catalysts; and single-application residents — Christopher Sweet (paper analytical devices), James Larkin (bacteriophage detection), Michael J. McKay (quality-control data systems), David Alley (a Honeywell ball-ramp brake) and Bryan Bergin (a modular air grill) — each printed here as a published application, not a patent. One resident stands outside the three lines entirely: John R. Erichsen of Adams Road, Granger, 46530, co-inventor of a sliding sign for Valmont Industries, carried in the record reached as Canadian application CA 2,492,987, filed 13 January 2005 and published 13 October 2005, later abandoned; no United States counterpart number was verified, and none is printed.

The historic strand. The register asked for the same sweep run against the named Clay and Harris township residents of Chapman (1880) and Howard (1907). The place-based record answers first: no patent face reached in this section carries an inventor address in Granger, or in either township, before the modern industrial era above — the designated place had no post office until 1875 and no town until 1883, and its nineteenth-century residents were farmers whose improvements, if any, left no patent paper. The name-by-name run of the full Chapman and Howard rosters against the patent indexes is the one part of this row the open record does not settle from a desk; it stands as a named gap, settler: a USPTO full-text inventor-name search against those two rosters, name by name.

Sources:

1. Google Patents and the patent faces for U.S. 6,521,152 B1 (18 Feb 2003), 6,841,052 B2 (11 Jan 2005), 7,122,110 B2 (17 Oct 2006), 7,125,481 B2 (24 Oct 2006), 7,435,381 B2 (14 Oct 2008), 7,438,839 B2 (21 Oct 2008), 8,003,026, 8,268,207 (18 Sep 2012), 9,709,109 B2 (18 Jul 2017) and 10,022,890 B2 (17 Jul 2018) — inventor residences and claim substance as printed on each face.
2. European family records EP 2 103 831 A1 and EP 2 103 832 B1 (La Forest, Murdie, Granger IN 46530); EP 1 895 184 A2 (Waghray, Granger); EP 1 930 618 B1 (Menzie, Granger).
3. Canadian Patents Database, CA 2,492,987 (sliding sign; Erichsen, Adams Road, Granger IN 46530; Valmont Industries), filed 13 Jan 2005, published 13 Oct 2005, abandoned.
4. Published-application records as indexed for Mukasyan, Kamat, McGinn, Sweet, Larkin, McKay, Alley and Bergin, each printed at application strength.