Ammunition and explosives – Cartridges
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-17
2001-09-25
Jordan, Charles T. (Department: 3644)
Ammunition and explosives
Cartridges
C102S473000, C102S501000, C102S517000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06293204
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fire-arm ammunition, specifically the means for identifying the sellers and buyers or, more generally, the providers and recipients of ammunition whose formed components are found at a crime scene or the site of military or law-enforcement action.
2. Description of the Related Art
Political conversations and news reports imply that forensic ballistics practice is still inefficient and uncertain. Associating a projectile or shell casing with a possible user requires recovery of a spent ammunition component with interpretable markings from the fire arm which discharged the ammunition, and it requires recovery of the fire arm. The latter may be associated with the owner or recent handler based on registration information or finger prints, respectively. This process would be much more efficient if the formed components of ammunition were code labeled and registered.
Roxby (U.S. Pat. No. 6,698,816) described a method for labeling ammunition projectiles wherein an identification member (IDM) in the form of a labeled disk is secured at the rear face of a bullet core by a cup-shaped copper jacket enclosing the rear part of the bullet core. Griffin (U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,483) described inclusion of an IDM in the form of a metal ring within the projectile. Collier (U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,789) described inclusion of an IDM within the projectile, the IDM being of any shape, any size and any material able to maintain its integrity in molten lead. Collier also suggested an identifiable chemical mixture incorporated into the lead. Hammond (U.S. Pat. No. 4,150,624) described a method wherein an IDM in the form of a rod or wafer is embedded within the projectile. The labeling methods involving formed IDMs should be effective, as the IDMs can bear codes with sufficient coding capacity, they are relatively tamper proof, and they should survive impact. Krystyniak (U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,330) described a method involving incorporation of magnetic particles of various Curie temperatures into the formed components of ammunition. It appears that this method and the chemical-mixture method of Collier would be difficult to implement and very limited in coding capacity compared with the other methods involving formed IDMs.
Disclosed herein are several methods for labeling formed components of ammunition with the two-dimensional binary array of Sant' Anselmo et al (U.S. Pat. No. 4,924,078), a coding symbol which would also be ideal for the IDMs of Roxby, Collier and Hammond.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention disclosed herein involves labeling of the main formed components in a retail unit (i.e. a package) of ammunition or ammunition components and the retail unit's package with a high-capacity code which distinguishes that package and its contents from every other of the same physical characteristics (size, shape, chemical composition of projectiles and/or shell casings). This would provide a very useful forensic tool, provided commercial transfers of ammunition are registered as are commercial transfers of firearms. In a military or police context, it would be useful for inventory management and quality control.
Presented are several ways to label projectiles and shell casings with the binary-array code or any comparably versatile and robust code.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1502925 (1924-07-01), Stone
patent: 1650908 (1927-11-01), Ramsey
patent: 1887324 (1932-11-01), Pocoroba
patent: 2592434 (1952-04-01), Krasnow
patent: 4150624 (1979-04-01), Hammond
patent: 4222330 (1980-09-01), Krystyniak
patent: 4924078 (1990-05-01), Sant' Anselmo
patent: 5485789 (1996-01-01), Collier
patent: 5511483 (1996-04-01), Griffin, Jr.
patent: 5685100 (1997-11-01), Atchison
patent: 5698816 (1997-12-01), Roxby
patent: 5758446 (1998-06-01), Atchison
Jordan Charles T.
Smith Kimberly S
LandOfFree
Code-labeled ammunition does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Code-labeled ammunition, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Code-labeled ammunition will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2459330