3 Unique 3M Innovations from 2019

Reviewing the most interesting recent 3M inventions (including military tech!) — and what they might mean for 3M in 2020 and beyond.

Having been founded over 100 years ago in 1902 as a humble mining and manufacturing company, 3M has since come a long way. Today (as of November 2019), it is a well-diversified, economic powerhouse with a market capitalisation of around $100 billion dollars (NYSE:MMM).

3M’s claims to fame include being the company behind Scotchguard protective spray, Post-It Notes and Scotch Tape (cellophane tape), and its innovation practices that have led the world. Nonetheless, it certainly has not been resting on its past glory or existing product lines. In fact, 3M is still one of the largest, and most diverse, patent filers in the world.

So, in this article, we dove into 3M’s recent patent publications to identify some of their most interesting innovations as published in 2019.

The rationale for looking at patents is that 3M’s R&D activities are based on their future plans, and new patent publications are often reflective of an organisation’s R&D activities. So, by looking at patent publications, valuable insights into a company’s vision can be gained.

Author’s note: to see more articles like these, please follow me (or sign up at hindsights for free). Our next series of articles will highlight changes in company R&D focus areas for a few billion-dollar companies between 2017/2018/2019.

Innovation 1: Portable Hydration Sensor

Wearable devices, and gadgets, were “all the rage” just a few years ago. Although it may feel like the hype has slowed a little, a quick look at the Google Trends search for the term “wearables” indicates that while interest has waned somewhat, it is still relatively strong, steady and potentially rising again.

Google Trends analysis for “wearables”

In that period, some companies (such as FitBit or Pebble) have struggled in the wearables market to be sure. But, others such as Apple seem to be doing just fine, and some commentators see it as a segment where it may be a big driver for growth. For a company as big as Apple, that is no mean feat.

So, it is very interesting to see 3M’s patent application US20190142332 entitled “Portable Hydration Sensor”.

Images from 3M’s US20190142332 application

This patent application describes a portable hydration sensor to infer the hydration state of the user via the skin. 3M also describes the technology to be inexpensive, and sufficiently small to be “incorporated into a wide variety of wearable devices, clothing, medical equipment, and the like”.

More specifically, 3M describes potential use in “wristwatch, a fitness monitor, or a medical patient monitor … wearable item that contacts the skin of the host such as, for example, clothing, eyewear, personal protection equipment, or bandages”.

This description according to 3M’s patent application sound quite useful, as well as being widely applicable in a growing field. It is therefore potentially very valuable technology, and made us wonder: what alternative technologies might be out there?

The 3M hydration sensing application appears highly unique, according to hindsights’ patent search.

Interestingly, this is one of the few patent applications where hindsights’ similar patent search algorithm did not pick up any documents of “high” or “somewhat high” relevance level.

Background: hindsights’ search engine looks for similar patents to a given patent and rates each result from slight to high relevance.

While there exist other hydration sensors, such as in this FitBit technology or in this Verily Life Science technology, the identified uniqueness of 3M’s technology indicates that this particular implementation is unique, and potentially presents 3M with a competitive advantage. That is, of course, if 3M is able to proceed to obtain a patent with this application.

Additionally, it is interesting to see that 3M is moving further into the “wearables” space other than the field of dressing/gauzes and adhesives. Does it mean a further push into this market by 3M?

Innovation 2: Pipeline monitoring

3M’s portfolio includes a range of pipeline-related products, as shown in the screen grab below for instance. However, upon closer inspection these appear to relate to pipe coatings / adhesives and structural applications, rather than any kind of monitoring needs.

3M’s range of pipeline infrastructure products (link)

So, we were surprised to see that our system flagged 3M’s application US20190072532, titled “Wireless Power Transfer And Sensing For Monitoring Pipelines”.

One key aspect of the pipeline monitoring application relates to its wireless operation. It is said to be able to monitor methane concentrations, and transmit data wirelessly. It also includes an ability to be “remotely powered by wirelessly harvesting power from a radio frequency (RF) radiation source”. More specifically, the“harvested power is sufficient to operate the microcontroller to take a measurement via the sensor, save the measurement in the memory module, and wirelessly transmit the measurement to the locator”.

If true, this technology would allow deployment of monitoring devices that are capable of “battery-free operation with wireless communication of data” for use in pipeline settings.

Similarly to the above patent application, the pipeline monitoring application is identified as being extremely unique by hindsights’ patent search engine.

Hindsights’ patent landscape found no high relevance documents related to this 3M application.

In fact, the closest patent application identified by hindsights’ search does relate to a wireless sensor network, as shown below, and the search also discovered 3M’s previous application in the area, entitled “Remote Communication And Powering Of Sensors For Monitoring Pipelines”.

The closest identified patent application to 3M’s application

An older 3M application identified as relevant

However, these two applications describe integrated power sources. The Rheidiant application describes “battery and/or solar power … programmed to maintain a low-power “sleep” mode as much as possible to extend battery life ”, and the older 3M application describes “multiple ultra-low power remote test points with sensors” and an “auxiliary power source, such as a battery, can provide power to control unit”.

As with all other battery-operated devices, these would have limited lifespans, and any connections to external power would carry their own limitations.

So, the initial data suggests that the new 3M patent application may cover some exciting new territory for 3M.

It’s not yet clear whether this presents a renewed push for 3M into the field of remote monitoring and data/power transmission.

As the search yielded so few results in the immediate technological area, let’s expand out a little to look at the broader field to identify key organisations in the adjacent area. The screen grab below shows hindsights’ output.

Key entities — adjacent IP (hindsights.io)

Very interestingly, General Electric, Medtronic and Boeing turn out here to be the top 3 entities, and drilling down to their filings using hindsights’ filter, they show results such as these:

Filtered (GE / Medtronic) results relevant to the 3M application (hindsights.io)

So, these companies’ portfolios are flagged for their relevance to the sensing/wireless communication aspects of the 3M application, not necessarily the pipeline monitoring. In the pipeline monitoring domain, 3M appears to be well placed to leverage this technology.

In summary, the 3M application in the field of pipeline monitoring appears to be quite unique, and it would be interesting to see how 3M leverages this patent application and how it fares in this field.

Innovation 3: Defect monitoring in ceramics

This application (US20190323980) is entitled “Verifying Structural Integrity Of Materials”, and relates to monitoring for cracks or other defects in materials such as a ceramic material.

Monitoring of defects is said to be carried out in this application by testing for changes in conductivity, and is said to be beneficial over traditional techniques such as X-ray or CT scans of the material, as expensive, time-consuming and large testing is no longer required.

Illustrations of 3M’s invention (US20190323980)

3M describes in this patent application that a high hardness and tensile strength material may be a suitable candidate for such technologies. Interestingly, the key field that is described by 3M is in ceramic armor plating, to be potentially used in “body armor for military and police personnel, vehicle armor or the like”.

Once again, this patent application appears to be highly unique in the world of patents. Hindsights’ search did reveal some related applications such as these by organisations such as IBM, Jentek Sensors and Intel:

US20180164181 Detecting Structural Integrity Of A Structural Component (IBM)

US20180209894 Method And Apparatus For Inspection Of Corrosion And Other Defects Through Insulation (Jentek)

US8928316 Method And Apparatus For Non-Destructive Evaluation Of Materials (Jentek)

US20190257793 Mechanical Failure Monitoring, Detection, And Classification In Electronic Assemblies (Intel)

These applications seem to have their difference to the present 3M application, indicating some potential opportunity for 3M to carve out a bit of space in this domain with this patent application.

One question with this particular application would be how applicable the technology is, and how valuable the field of integrity monitoring is if it is to be restricted to armour plating technologies.

Looking at the applications above (and a few not discussed in this article), 3M’s tradition of innovation looks like it is alive and well.

Thanks for reading.

To see more articles like these, please follow me here. Our next articles will discuss more general changes in company R&D focus areas between 2017/2018/2019, highlighting areas of increased/decreased focus. Also, check out hindsights for instant insights to a US patent publication. Evaluation of these patent publications were carried out using our platform.

Let me know below in the comments or contact me directly on jhwang@hindsights.io if you have any requests on other companies’, or for more detailed, bespoke reports.

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