The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 15, 2004
Filed:
Jul. 16, 2003
John H. Hebrank, Durham, NC (US);
Thomas Bryan, Raleigh, NC (US);
Embrex, Inc., Durham, NC (US);
Abstract
Systems and methods for rapidly identifying live eggs within a stream of eggs with high accuracy, are provided. A stream of eggs are candled via a candling apparatus and each candled egg is designated as being either live, non-live, or “uncertain”. Eggs designated as non-live and uncertain are removed from the stream. Each egg designated as uncertain is “recandled” at a separate station via an additional candling procedure in order to definitively determine if the “uncertain” egg is live or non-live. Uncertain eggs identified as being live via recandling are returned to the egg stream such that the stream contains only live eggs. The uncertain eggs determined to be non-live via recandling are removed and are either discarded or used for other purposes.