U.S. Patent 7688028 was awarded to Black & Decker Inc. on 2010-03-30 and describes a “Cordless power system.” This patent has been cited 322 times by other U.S. patents which places it in the top 500 cited patents since 2010 according to our law firm research, and makes it of the most innovative electrical machinery, apparatus, energy patents in the field of electrical engineering. The abstract states:

A cordless system has cordless system components that include a cordless device, such as a cordless power tool, a battery pack and a charger. The battery pack is mated with either the cordless device to provide power to operate the cordless device or to the charger to charge the battery cells in the battery pack. In an aspect, the cordless system has an identification and communication system by which the battery pack identifies and communicates information about the battery pack to the cordless device or to the charger to which the battery pack is mated. In an, the battery pack of the cordless system is capable of multiple modes, such as controlling the cordless device and controlling the charger. In an aspect, the battery pack validates the cordless device or charger to which it is mated in an aspect of the invention, the cordless system uses any of a wired interface, radio frequency interface, an optical interface or a magnetic interface to communicate information between the battery pack and the cordless device or charger to which the battery pack is mated. In an aspect, female terminals are used in a terminal block of the battery pack to protect against foreign objects contacting the terminals. In aspect, the terminals in the terminal block of the battery pack are staggered or scattered to reduce the likelihood of a short circuit. In an aspect of the invention, the battery pack has a trap door that closes when the battery pack is not mated to a cordless device or charger to protect the terminal block of the battery pack. In an aspect of the invention, multi-spring, split contact terminals are used in the terminal block of at least one of the cordless system components. In an aspect of the invention, the battery cells are Lithium Ion battery cells. Link: U.S. Patent 7688028

This patent was originally filed on 2005-10-14 which gives it a processing time of 1628 days, compared to an average processing time of 1331 in the field. Black & Decker Inc. has 4030 total patents. The first named inventor is James B. Watson of Baltimore, MD. The assistant examiner was M’baye Diao.

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