Here I am railing on again about patents which seem to attempt to patent an= d profit from applied common sense and time honoured standard practice and normality, let alone trivial obviousness. On this occasion it's Apple who has been granted a patent for connecting things together ijn wholly obvious trivial time honoured ways and for MPPT controlling a system based on a technically false premise. ________ It seems to me fairly obvious that if you build a piece of electronic portable equipment and wish to use photovoltaic cells (PVC)to charge it tha= t you may wish to also use mains chargers, internal or external batteries or various other external or internal energy sources, You may wish the PVC to operate the equipment directly or other connected equipment and or to charg= e internal or external batteries. It's wholly obvious that you may have PVC connectable and disconnectable and that you may have have 0,1 or N of them. It's wholly obvious that you may essentially connect the PVC to the battery or batteries, internal or external or both, usually with a small amount of isolating equipment (typically a Schottky diode r a FET) or you may choose to apply MPPT (maximum power point tracking) methods to best match PVC and load impedances so that a maximum possible portion of the available energy is utilised in some useful manner in some way or other at a given time its also obvious to me (but apparently not so to some gun guys at Apple*, that just not loading down a panel when there is no energy conversions (smps)(buck boost) between PVC and load will NOT maximise energy transfer t= o a load. When there is no energy conversion its obvious (but not to the Appl= e and other bright ones) that holding the PVC at "ITS" maximum power point MA= Y NOT deliver maximum possible useful energy to a load. eg if the load is a battery then USUALLY maximising current allows maximum energy transfer even if the PVC is loaded to below or even well below its MPP. I say that the emperor has vanishingly few clothes on and that those that h= e does have on have been stolen from other people. If any thing in the above or below seems new or unique or novel to the USPT= O or any other PTO or to the thieves from whoever then I both assure them tha= t it is most certainly not BUT I hereby place in the public domain anything that is deemed novel. If anything above is incorrect but deemed novel and patentable then I most certainly public domain that as well. Summary Some photo voltaic cells and some energy sources and some loads may be connected together in various ways to gain most benefit. The PVCmay be loaded by the battery essentially directly or a "SMPS" may be used with suitable control equipment and algorithms to optimis energy transfer between devices, or for any other reason. Duh :-). _________ _____________________ http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=3DPTO1&Sect2=3DHITOFF&d=3DP= ALL&p=3D1&u=3D/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=3D1&f=3DG&l=3D50&s1=3D7,868,582.P= N.&OS=3DPN/7,868,582&RS=3DPN/7,868,582Shorten%20Links%20Here http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7868582.html I have little doubt that a patent attorrney may or wlll tell me that all is not as it seems here amnd that Apple aren't really being given a patent for - Charging portable stuff from one or more of several power sources where one source is solar. - MPPT to solar input being overwhelmed by system load even though the person who wrote the application (apparently) has misconceptions about how MPPT usually works or is applied. (A recent simplified-MPPT applicatiin not= e was based on the same misconception). Also: http://www.electroiq.com/index/display/photovoltaics-article-display/108707= 3956/articles/Photovoltaics-World/industry-news/2011/1/apple-wins-solar-pat= ent-notice.html _____ I found this disturbing http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2011/01/apples-us-7868582-on-solar-powered.html It's written by a patent attorney and notes objections in Feb 2010 and late= r which were overcome by supplying new banal explanations to support their initial trivial claims. If this is what the US and world patent system has come to (and evidently i= t has) then all the dogs will feed well on dog this year. Here a "plug and play" solar system is one which may be connected or disconnected and.or regulated to maintain its output at some deemed optimum level. "The applicant distinguished the references on the basis that neither Nagui= b nor Peress allow the amount of power to be adjusted based on the attributes of the device to which power is provided." is both conceptually incorrect and stupid regardless in the context. It is amusing to note that 7,442,077, which it contested with, notes "... The cables of the system may be of consistent polarity among various configurations such that current flows through mating connectors at the cable ends. ... " Presumably this distinguishes it from a system with plug in cables that doe= s NOT have consistent polarity among various configurations[mitt spitzen sparken]] and / or such that for some connections current does not flow. ________ " ... tramps and thieves ..., and lay their money down". Russell McMahon --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .