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2026-10-04 Google Patents: US 4,432,098 (essay ref 24)

URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4432098A/en (read in Chrome).

Findings [web]

  • Title: "Apparatus and method for transfer of information by means of a curl-free magnetic vector potential field". Inventor Raymond C. Gelinas; assignee Honeywell Inc. Filed 1980-10-20 (US 06/198,324), granted 1984-02-14, expired 2001-02-14.
  • Family / related: EP0050523A2 "Electromagnetic transmission using a curl-free magnetic vector potential field" (EP81304926A); JP56167829A; CA1172756A. Sister Gelinas/Honeywell patents filed the same day: US4429280 (demodulation), US4429288 (modulation), US4447779 (direction/position determination), US4605897 (distance determination); Canadian counterparts CA1172757A, CA1175563A, CA1172760A.
  • Content: a solenoid or toroid makes a vector potential A with CURL A = 0 outside the windings; a Josephson junction detects it through the phase term (Aharonov-Bohm-type coupling). The patent states that modulation implies dA/dt = -E outside, so an electric field accompanies any change, and it says the curl-free field "can be established in materials that are not capable of transmitting more common electromagnetic radiation". It says nothing about superluminal transmission; it says "the finite field propagation velocity will cause a delay ... these delay effects will be ignored in this discussion."
  • Cited by (10), including Werner Kropp US5138172 / AU639954B2 ("information energy" applied to substrates), Gradient Dynamics US9306527 ("scalar-longitudinal waves"), Divergent Inc. vector-potential wireless power patents (2016), and Nikolova US20090034657 ("wave-potential communication").

Bearing on the claims

The essay cites this patent for vector potentials as information carriers (part of claims 3 and 6). A corporate assignee (Honeywell) filed a whole family on curl-free vector-potential signalling in 1980. That is an interested party's characterization of a working method. In its own text the patent treats propagation as finite-speed. The citing patents are related work (priority 3).