Sometimes even the simplest of designs can get you in trouble. Consider this: Maxwell House launched a 39-ounce plastics container for coffee. Procter & Gamble subsequently requested a preliminary injunction stopping use of the design, claiming that it infringes on its plastic canister patent in use for Folgers coffee. It seems almost that P&G claims that use of a plastics container is a patent infringement. Five specific areas of infringement are cited (see image below), and none seem particularly unique. One for example is use of a flexible lid. Another is use of rigid areas in the package. That strikes me as a tad much.
A new process for laser-welding large-scale, steel-aluminum foam sandwich structures for lightweighting ships, which eliminates intermetallic phase, has been demonstrated.
A major advance in repairing composite structures combining robots and lasers bodes well for commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350XWB, which contain composites in large proportions of their structures.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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