Eastern New York Intellectual Property Law Association Announces Inventor of the Year

Albany, NY – The Eastern New York Intellectual Property Law Association (ENYIPLA) is pleased to announce Inventor of the Year for 2006. The honor is being awarded to Zewu Chen for U.S. Patents 6,934,359 – issued August 23, 2005, – entitled “Wavelength Dispersive XRF System Using Focusing Optic for Excitation and a Focusing Monochromator for Collection” and 6,285,506 – issued September 4, 2001 – entitled “Curved Optical Device and Method of Fabrication.”

The patents are related to an apparatus and methods for a sulfur analyzer used to determine the total sulfur in gasoline, diesel fuels, and other refinery process streams. Globally, refiners are dramatically reducing the sulfur content of on-road gasoline and diesel fuels to address environmental concerns raised by their governments.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has mandated a reduction of sulfur in on-road diesel from 500 parts per million (ppm) to as low as 15 ppm by mid-2006. Other countries are following similar paths. To comply with the ultra-low-sulfur fuel regulations, refiners and pipeline operators require sulfur test techniques, but measurement of low sulfur levels has become problematic due to limitations of current sulfur measurement methods.

Dr. Chen and X-Ray Optical Systems, Inc. (XOS) specialize in the manufacture of x-ray optics and related components, which enable small, robust measurement systems. With Dr. Chen spearheading the effort, XOS developed a sulfur-in-diesel analyzer, or SINDIE�, as a solution to industrial measurement of sulfur for compliance with the EPA’s (as well as Canadian, European, and Japanese) mandate for 2006. The SINDIE� sulfur analyzer is used to determine the total sulfur in gasoline, diesel fuels, and other refinery process streams. The analyzer employs the patented technology.

SINDIE� offers a unique solution for the petroleum industry where reliability, productivity, and measurement speed are essential. The breakthrough florescence technique of the SINDIE� analyzer offers a limit of detection of < 1 ppm, and a large, linear, dynamic range of 0-5-3000 ppm. This direct and nondestructive measurement technique does not require sample conversion or consumable gases and does not involve high temperature operation. The result is a robust process analyzer with minimal maintenance, increased safety, and unprecedented detection capability and measurement speed.

Dr. Zewu Chen is currently the Senior Research Scientist for X-Ray Optical Systems, a position he has held since 1998. Dr. Chen is internationally recognized as the inventor of the doubly-curved crystal technology and is an active contributor to many peer-reviewed publications in the area of applied physics. In addition, for his work, Dr. Chen has received US government grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy and EPA. Dr. Chen has a B.S. in Material Science from the University of Science & Technology of China, a Masters of Science in Physics from Temple University (Philadelphia) and a Ph.D. in Material Science from the University of Southern California.

The Eastern New York Intellectual Property Law Association is a regional organization of patent attorneys and agents. Each year the ENYIPLA chooses an Inventor of the Year. The criteria for selection are creativity, economic value, the difficulty of the problem, the contribution to the well-being of society as a whole and the status of the invention and inventor in his/her field. Previous winners’ inventions have been drawn from the complete breadth of technology arising in eastern New York state: computer chip design and manufacture, fuel cell development, pharmaceuticals, gas turbine engineering, medical and surgical devices and computer software.

Inventor Week is February 5-11, 2006. This year’s Award Presentation and Banquet ceremony will be held on February 7, 2006 at the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia, New York.