ENGlobal Awarded New Patent

The US Patent and Trademark Office has awarded ENGlobal Corporation a patent (#7,419,061) for developing the “Integrated Rack System”. Usually, a person represents a patent claim for a corporation throughout the process. James Dorsey, Vice President of Business Development for ENGlobal Automation Group (EAG) did this and was a co-inventor with Olan Weeks, who was then the CEO of ENGlobal Systems. EAG, Systems segment has been working hard on this for years with James continuing its intermediate and final development. James first showed me the system over 3 years ago. I covered it in my Annual Report to ENGlobal Investors. Here is what I said in 2005:

“James showed me a new patent pending Instrument Integrated Rack System that is used in the RIBs [Remote Instrument Buildings]. The design permits shorter wiring and cable lengths of up to 95% less. This represents a fantastic all around savings for ENGlobal and the customer. This makes for a simpler, faster build with less “system” to possibly fail.”

To summarize, the Integrated Rack System provides an average of 80-90% wire reduction. This reduces the material and labor costs from $150K – $300K per unit. Additionally, there is less fire/smoke detection and fire suppression concerns; along with this are less air conditioning needed and an overall energy savings. I remember a one million dollar unit that saved $288k on manufacturing costs. This is quite a marketing advantage. Moreover, anyone using this efficient system for any kind of instrument-controls-sensor-computer interface will have to obtain a license from ENGlobal.

You can see the patent filing here:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=dorsey.INNM.&OS=IN/dorsey&RS=IN/dorsey

You can see the Patent Award announcement here:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week36/OG/patentee/alphaD.htm

You can see the Integrated Rack System diagram here:

http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week36/OG/html/1334-1/US07419061-20080902.html

Here are some ENGlobal comments from an article in 2005:

In March 2005, ENGlobal Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of ENGlobal Corporation ("ESI"), announced the development of a unique, patent-pending design system called "Integrated Rack(TM)." ENGlobal anticipates that this patent-pending Integrated Rack will allow it to install and maintain control, communication, and analytical equipment, either alone or in combination, in a more efficient manner than existing design systems permit. ENGlobal's new design system provides coordinated, cohesive and efficient support to both communication systems and power and environmental conditioning systems that otherwise would require a distributed signal. As a result of the launch of the patent-pending Integrated Rack, ENGlobal believes that it can provide its clients with an improved process for equipment installation and decrease required maintenance time and expense. ENGlobal expects that its clients' use of the patent-pending Integrated Rack will also result in lower energy consumption, reduction in the need for computer flooring, and better safety conditions.

Myron C. Glidewell, P.E., [Former] President of ESI, said, "The patent-pending Integrated Rack design system provides an advantageous design that we expect will give ENGlobal recognition in the marketplace and provide a clear differentiator to the fabrication techniques used by our competitors."

http://www.b2i.us/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?ResLibraryID=9034&GoTopage=6&BzID=702&Category=64&a=

Congratulations to ENGlobal, James Dorsey and Olan Weeks. This proves ENGlobal is innovative and deserves their motto: Global Thinking ~ Global Solutions. Good luck to everyone.