14 July 2008, USA: The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 7,392,710 to the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) on 1 July 2008.

KFUPM is a leading research and teaching institution in the Middle East.  Located in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, KFUPM engages in research in a wide variety of fields, from cutting-edge communication encryption technology to petroleum mining and flow technologies.

The patent is for a fluid flow measuring device of critical importance in the operation and monitoring of petrochemical plants, weather monitoring and forecasting, air transportation traffic control, electronic cooling and a wide variety of biomedical engineering applications.

The patented flow meter probe was developed by KFUPM Department of Mechanical Engineering professors Drs.  Rached Ben-Mansour and Muhammad Hawwa. The state-of-the-art invention, discovered through research at KFUPM, is highly accurate and may be used with any fluid or gas flow, allowing for superior versatility when compared to earlier flow measuring tools. The invention measures the velocity vector of the flow of gases or liquids with aerodynamic or hydrodynamic force sensors instead of pressure sensors.

KFUPM is at the forefront in benefiting from U.S. patent protection. This patent was obtained for the university by Litman Law Offices, Ltd, a U.S. based patent and trademark law firm located in Arlington, Virginia, near the US Patent Office.  Patent Attorney Richard Litman says: "Among the universities and businesses our law firm represents in the region, KFUPM is at the leading edge in many fields of technology. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a world center for technological innovation and KFUPM holds a preeminent global position for its innovative research. Our law firm is honored to work with the university in obtaining intellectual property protection in the United States."

KFUPM has dozens of state-of-the-art patent pending and patented inventions among its intellectual property assets. Like its other innovations, this fluid flow discovery is expected to have significant commercial value. 

-Ends-

For further information, please contact
Patent Attorney Richard C. Litman at Litman Law (www.LitmanLaw.com).
Telephone: 703-486-1000.
Email: litman@4patent.com .

© Press Release 2008