Emergency
S fety
Solutions
S fety
Solutions
Site tour gave 20 U.S. Patent Examiners insight into origin of H.E.L.P. Alerts
and showcased how ESS leverages its extensive patent portfolio to drive
standardization in Advance Warning communications globally
HOUSTON (August 21, 2024) – When you bring much-needed visibility to a tragic, growing yet largely overlooked roadway safety problem – and invent a novel, lifesaving solution to help prevent it from happening in the first place – important pockets of U.S. government tend to take notice.
Such is the case for Emergency Safety Solutions (ESS) – creator of the Hazard Enhanced Safety Protocol (H.E.L.P.®) – which revolutionizes the hazard warning system for passenger and commercial vehicles by making them much more noticeable to oncoming motorists via advanced lighting alerts and digital location-based alerts.
On August 21, 2024, a group of 20 patent examiners from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) descended upon ESS’ Houston headquarters as part of the USPTO Site Experience Education Program to learn more about ESS’ extensively patented, breakthrough road safety solutions.
The Site Experience Education Program provides patent examiners an opportunity to visit organizations and learn about state-of-the-art technology developments. It also helps the USPTO improve the quality of its examination process by giving examiners technical training from innovators, scientists, engineers and experts working directly in the various technologies examined throughout the USPTO.
Through the program, patent examiners learn about new and evolving technologies, and experience first-hand how these technologies are developed and operate in the field. In like fashion, it gives inventors/innovative companies the opportunity to interact directly with examiners during these personal visits to their real-world development sites.
The USPTO selected ESS for this site visit in part because the company’s H.E.L.P. suite of solutions is covered by a robust, open and growing patent portfolio of more than 100 granted and pending patents in 43 countries around the world.
The examiners who visited ESS represented USPTO’s Power Supply, Power Conversion and Regulation, Illumination Devices, Power Distribution, and Protective Devices art units. They met with company founder David Tucker, who shared how his idea for ESS and H.E.L.P. Alerts was inspired by several harrowing incidents along the roadway while attending to his shouldered RV and towed vehicle.
In 2014 Tucker was nearly killed by a close-passing 18-wheeler that completely ignored the flashing hazard lights of his shouldered RV – shearing off the side mirrors of his towed vehicle and forcing Tucker to dive out of the way to prevent being struck. Highly motivated by his near-death experience, Tucker set out to create new ways to greatly increase the conspicuity of disabled and vulnerable vehicles, and in doing so, give oncoming drivers far more advance warning to safely avoid them and their occupants.
During their session with the ESS team, the patent examiners were treated to demos of H.E.L.P. Alerts – including Lighting Alerts that deploy with a dramatically improved hazard flash pattern that is both faster and sharper than standard hazard lighting, and Digital Alerts that are sent to oncoming drivers via in-vehicle displays and GPS navigation apps to provide beyond-line-of-sight advance warning as they approach a disabled vehicle. These combined alerts provide unmatched situational awareness to drivers approaching disabled and vulnerable vehicles.
The examiners were also briefed on ESS’ intellectual property-backed and based business models, H.E.L.P.’s compliance with federal and state motor vehicle safety regulations, compelling third-party H.E.L.P. efficacy research, and the company’s exceptional progress with ongoing implementations with automakers, commercial vehicle OEMs and fleet operators, RV manufacturers, state and municipal fleets, and more, in both new vehicle production and upfit markets in 2024.
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