I was talking about grounding kits on another board and some guy said that a company called SUN automotive or something has an international patent on makeing and selling grounding kits? WTF?

 

You can't patent the concept of grounding anymore than you can patent the concept of cold air induction. It's BS.

U.S. law provides that a patent may be granted to any person for the invention or discovery of any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereto; for the invention of asexual reproduction of some distinct and new variety of plant; or for any original design for an article of manufacture. In 1980 patent coverage was also extended to the products of genetic engineering, including seeds, plants, and cultivars, as well as to new genetic engineering methods themselves.

Also, there is no such thing as an "international patent". A patent affords protection against infringement only within the jurisdiction of the government by which it is issued, and it is therefore necessary to take out a patent in every country in which protection is desired.

 

agreed, and a lot of other companies would be in trouble, nissan for one, they ground it from the factory, wouldnt that be a violation of antitrust laws? haha. not to mention they sell one aftermarket too.

 

I agree, and those are the same comments i made to him.

 

Well, I'm a chemical Patent Examiner, as compared to a Mechanical or Electrical Examiner...so for what it's worth. Just for the record, these comments are solely mine and do not and are not meant to represent the position taken by my beloved employer, the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The concept of grounding is old as dirt and, as stated above, could not be patented...no more so that the concept of treating a disease could be patented.

However, under the provisions of existing patent law, if a company/individual developed a new, unobvious and useful cable or other means for accomplishing the objective of grounding, the cable or other means could be patented.

If the company/individual developed a new, unobvious and useful method for grounding, that method could be patented.

Also, if a company/individual developed a new, unobvious and useful method for manuafacturing a component used in grounding, that method could be patented.

Just my $0.02


VG

 

bhobson33 and i made our own grounding kit, we had all the cable connected to one location on the engine block, and then to various parts on the engine, from the main connection point back to the batteries ground, more like what i thought it should have been. seeems to make a difference





Somewhat different from what most are doing, but it seemed to make more sense to me this way

 

clean install brotha! black cables are the only way to go. glad you didnt go with neon blue, or yellow.
franklinz

 

Thanks, only thing i dont like is i ran out of shrink wrap, so the last 2 ends have electrical tape instead of shrink wrap, but ill fix that later

 

My experience with electric circuits runs contrary to this statement. First, saying that stereo cable is different than grounding cable is wrong. Cable is the medium, its application is in grounding or audio signal transmission. The best cable for a ground run is one which offers the least resistance to the load being grounded. This can be accomplished through a large number of small cables, or through large gauge wires. The key is low resistance. Many of the kits I see are using 4 gauge copper wire, which may be overkill for the application. Using Monster Cable or Kimber or whatever normally menas you are buying a more pure and conductive cable. Most circuit designers spend very little money on grounding cables, outside of the audio world. This is evident in the 350z's motor as well.

Secondly, grounds are not wired in series or parrallel. They are single points to ground. Grounding needs to offer the the least path of resistance to a ground. Parallel and serial circuits are full path - to + circuits which may include a ground element.

You are correct that there cannot be an electrical break in a ground run, for that particular run to be effective as a ground.

Correctly installing grounding cables is a matter of some discussion, but any path that is shortens the trip to ground is beneficial.

 

dude are your connectors rusting? not good. glad I sprung for the gold plated monster cable connectors, even if its just pretty.

 

HAHAHA, they are copper connectors, and look good in person, I'd be a little concerned if they were on for 10 minutes(when the pic was taken) and already rusted