Andre_Db66 Posted May 10 Author Report Share Posted May 10 And it also makes me wonder if Olson knew about the theory Goodmans applied without patenting and made a study out of that and then received a patent # With inventors and inventions and the general public it is an obscure relationship. Tesla being one of them... Tesla invented everything we associate with radio -- antennas, tuners and the like -- but an inventor named Guglielmo Marconi was given the actual credit. In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Tesla's patent had precedence, but the public already considered Marconi the father of radio [source: TAMMY]. Goodmans started back in 1923 producing speakers and earphones. Has many patents as well. I can not find any articles on the company founder though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 Yes, good point, if those ads were widely run then Olson probably saw them and it is impressive that Goodmans came up with the idea in the 1930s. Especially with air and suspension as a key feature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 I can't help wondering if, having used Olson's patent to invalidate Villchur's, EV ended up paying royalties to Olson instead or if they then found some way to get out from under his patent as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReliaBill Engineer Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 Sometimes the same physical principles, used in a more specific way, don’t qualify as patent infringement, and qualify for their own patent. I think of all the different patents for use of the MM principal in phono cartridges, or use of Magnetic Induction in MI phono cartridges. Shure Bros patented the Stereo Dynetic MM cartridge in the 1950s. But countless other companies came up with their own MM cartridges shortly after. There are multiple ways to use a sealed volume of air in a cabinet to support a woofer suspension, and tune it. Also multiple ways to design a woofer for use in a sealed cabinet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 10 Author Report Share Posted May 10 But what about the key features? If they are not properly described in a patent because in fact it is experimental and evolving datawise then someone performing an academical study on it, will always improve someone elses idea. This is in essence what happened with the mm and mc cartridges. Somebody invented the first system, because initially there was only a needle scratching the bakelite surface grooves and gradually that evolved into different suspensions and motors for pick up elements. Obviously it was in some way inventing the wheel over and over again up until the point that it almost becomes subjected to taste. Why do we prefer one cartridge or system over the other...? (I prefer MC 😁) With air cushion suspension i believe it was no different. When you think about how Goodmans speakers work, their performance is almost a one on one copy of AR and i should imagine Olsons take on it. I have no idea at this point which speakers i have to look at for that. Failing to describe it in detail can spiral you into oblivion, but commercially, Goodmans were a succes. Vilchur probably obtained credit because it was better documented and commercialised to a greater extent. It all relies on the same physics principle though, thus reinventing the wheel. Probably memory serves those who claimed the invention last? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 A great deal of design R&D consists of trying to accomplish what a patented design does without using the patented design. Many patents (possibly, most patents) are not for entire designs, but for some small difference added to prior art that makes the new design not merely a copy of the prior art. And when authoring a patent, it is important to include a thorough description of the design and all of its potential applications, because while the people in the Patent Office who issue patents are required to have engineering or technical education and training, they are seldom specialists who can infer undocumented aspects or applications of new designs, and the judges who hand down rulings on patent disputes have even less technical knowledge. If Vilchur had properly researched prior art and had known about Olson's patent, it is conceivable that he might have successfully argued in his application that the use of a previously patented high compliance speaker to produce only low frequencies from large woofers in sealed cabinets as part of a multi-driver speaker system was a "nonobvious use of an existing product." https://patents.google.com/patent/US2490466 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 10 Author Report Share Posted May 10 Just curious, does anyone know of a speaker that has been produced with the Olson designed patent applied? Brand, model? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReliaBill Engineer Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 While I have made extensive use of different woofers over the last 4+ decades, I’ve never designed a woofer from a blank sheet. A woofer designed for an open baffle application has equal loading on front and back of the woofer cone. A sealed enclosure has very different loads front and back of the cone. A ported cabinet has a mixture. Im just happy that brilliant folks did the hard work of the design. I don’t aspire to try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted May 11 Report Share Posted May 11 @genek You've mentioned Olson several times. I can't access the patent for some reason but I believe that Olson is listed as the inventor but the patent is probably owned by RCA. I would not be surprised if RCA didn't enforce the patent, not sure though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted May 11 Report Share Posted May 11 I found a working link to it. Look in the previous post up above. Olson as inventor, RCA as assignee. Wonder why RCA didn't make an effort to contest Vilchur's patent. Or if they used it in anything they made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 The very strange thing with that link is that the title now is "Loudspeaker diaphragm support comprising plural compliant members" The patent number is correct but it has an A suffix, and the original title was "Air Suspension Loudspeaker" I don't know what is going on. I found Olson's patent several years ago under "Air Suspension Loudspeaker" and there are other pages online about Olson that refer to it under that title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 12 Author Report Share Posted May 12 Fishy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 Possibly Olson was unaware of the earlier Goodmans design when he originally filed and revised his patent to remove any resemblance to its title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 13 Author Report Share Posted May 13 The fact that i am building speakers at home experimentally both sucessfully and unsuccesfully doesnt mean all the techniques have not been implemented before. If my outcome is great i can not patent it because i am toying with something which was invented long ago. In the pioneer days however those boundaries were less clear or well defined. The persons applying the suspension first most likely also had a problem describing and patenting because otherwise Olson would not have stood a chance. That is my take on things. Olson did not invent something completely new but simply put, described it better and had that description officially acknowledged. Vilchur otoh lacked the time and will to engage legal battles because he was probably skating on thin ice, and as mentioned before had already obtained public credit anyway, why bother. Searching internet for Goodmans returns very little and as we are talking about a company founded 100 years ago, likely its close to impossible to retrieve the correct info. The company ceased to exist also. It also merged with Tannoy at one point. The name Tannoy being synonymous with the term speaker to the british for in every train station nationwide they would hang for PA objective. So not well known perhaps in the USA but both companies were majjor league. Tannoy now is chinese as many things unfortunately. That is how things dilute in the end... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 13 Author Report Share Posted May 13 .....🤐 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted May 14 Report Share Posted May 14 I remember seeing Goodmans Maxim advertisements in the Audio magazines back in the 1960s but I don't remember any mention of air cushion. Here's a copy of one of the ads: https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/voicing-of-the-original-goodmans-maxim-mini-monitor.222961/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete B Posted May 14 Report Share Posted May 14 This has more detail about the Magnum-K that you referenced and it came out in 1965: https://hifi-wiki.com/index.php/Goodmans_Magnum_K A 3-way with a 12" woofer and it DOES have mention of "air cushion" and that they used it since the 1930s. It sounds to me like they wanted to compete with the AR-3 and perhaps had wishful thinking about "air cushion" in the 1930s. I call them as I see them and everybody lies especially in marketing. If they came up with air cushion in the 1930s why didn't they have speakers using it in the 1950s? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genek Posted May 14 Report Share Posted May 14 The 1950s was the era of "bigger is better." Maybe their marketing people didn't think there would be demand for smaller boxes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AR55 Posted May 14 Report Share Posted May 14 4 hours ago, genek said: Maybe their marketing people didn't think there would be demand for smaller boxes? The consumer electronics industry is littered with corporate failures to capitalize on their own inventions. A few that come that come to mind: Ampex – the VCR RCA – liquid crystal display Xerox – the personal computer I remember reading that the management at Ampex and Xerox actually showed off their R&D efforts in great detail to their competitors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre_Db66 Posted May 14 Author Report Share Posted May 14 That list is long. Philips here in the netherlands can be added. compact cassette was their invention but Sony patented the walkman... 🤔 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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