On to my second blog after a pause while I was away in Paris and after that when my daughter was hogging the computer doing her essay for her college course. Anyway sitting here with a can of John Smith’s Extra Smooth, I wonder what on Earth I should blog about, then I remember the widget inside my can: a little plastic “thing” that causes the beer to foam and give it a creamy head. So I take a knife to my previous (empty) can and extract one to see what it looks like: it turns out to be a spherical ball about 3cm in diameter with an equatorial seam (like a table-tennis ball but a bit smaller); and with a conical depression in the base and a little nozzle formed at the top.
Looking at the patents database http://ep.espacenet.com, I decide to see if I can track it down to see how it works: there being no patent number on the can or on the widget. Searching in espacenet for “widget” draws a blank, so I look on the web in general and immediately pin down a Wikipedia article on “widget (beer)” which gives the first patent filed in the field, GB1266351. Looking at the 3 European classifications for this patent in espacenet I find that the classification B65D85/73 [containers etc..with means specially adapted for effervescing the liquids, e.g. for forming bubbles or beer head] seems to be for widgets, so I look in espacenet to see how many hits that classification gives: 844. Pausing for a comfort break and to get my last can of beer from the fridge I take another look at the can for any other clues, and am still sober enought to see that the beer was brewed by Scottish & Newcastle. Back to espacenet and a combination search for the classification and “scottish + newcastle” gives a nice 22 hits. Browsing through the hits shows a nice selection of widgits, some spherical and other assorted shapes GB2353265 looks a likely contender:
A device for inclusion in a pressurised beverage container for jetting gas into a beverage in the container upon opening the container comprises a housing (13,23) defining an internal chamber (30) provided with spaced lower and upper permanently open orifices (22,12). The internal chamber (30) is adapted to contain pressurised gas and a quantity of beverage. The upper orifice (12) is located above and the lower orifice (22) below the level of beverage in the device prior to firing of the device when the container is opened. The upper orifice (12) is in communication with the internal chamber through an upper standpipe (11) which, immediately prior to firing of the device, opens into the internal chamber (30) below the surface level of the beverage held within the container.; The device further comprises upper and lower well structures (15,25) on an external surface of the device in which are respectively located the upper and lower orifices (12,22), and in which, upon firing, beverage from within the device is forced towards the upper orifice (12) such that pressurised gas from the internal chamber (30) is preferentially expelled through the lower orifice (22) into the beverage in the container.
If you want to see the diagram you’ll have to check it out on espacenet:
http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=EPODOC&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20010221&CC=GB&NR=2353265A&KC=A
But just to make sure I look at the description of this patent and see that the closest prior art mentioned is EP833787 which is equivalent to WO9636545, both of which show something very similar.
But I’m still looking for a patent with the conical depression The ones I found have only a small 45 Degree chamfer, which might represent the same thing. Maybe S&N will give me a better analysis!