This is very interesting information, Joe. It clarifies in more detail the fact that this entire lead-free movement was a planned scam for a bunch of hucksters to make millions at the expense of the general public. Not one iota of "preventive medicine" will come of it. There will be very little benefit to all of us from an environmental standpoint. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joe Fjelstad Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:26 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Lead-free patent activity - FYI Greetings all, I took a look the other day at US patents to see what was happening on the lead-free front and senses the size of the minefield was being laid out for future legal battles as lead-free products are being rolled out. I did a quick search using the limiters of: Lead free OR leadfree OR lead-free AND solder AND circuit, It is admittedly not perfect but it was done in a manner to to try and focus the search on electronics related filings and hopefully filter out things like paint, gasoline and pipe. The same search was performed for each of the 14 years back to 1992 which is about when the lead-free campaign began. Here are the results: Year No. of patents 1992 = 3 1993 = 9 1994 = 8 1995 = 21 1996 = 11 1997 = 13 1998 = 20 1999 = 25 2000 = 32 2001 = 58 2002 = 92 2003 = 135 2004 = 165 2005 = 159 Total = 751 It appears that there was an early surge around the time the US government first expressed a willingness to listen to the argument for a band on lead and then a slow down that roughly corresponds with US government's realization that there was no scientific evidence that lead in electronic solder was a problem and then another surge in patents that has accelerated since the EU made known their intentions. Now here is the kicker... There are more than 1100 published US patent applications currently pending issue using the same search criteria. The number of suppressed US patent fillings and foreign patents would surely have added significantly to the tally. Best wishes, Joe --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------