900 Patents and Growing

HRL Laboratories LLC, announced today that it has obtained its 900th patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The landmark patent was issued for the invention titled “Dynamic Damping in a Quartz Oscillator” (8,933,759). The invention is a new quartz resonator design in which extra electrodes are added to the shear-mode resonator for detecting and electrostatically damping external mechanical vibrations. By combining multiple electrode on the same piece of quartz, the single resonator works both as a UHF oscillator and a MEMS accelerometer that is insensitive to external vibrations. In many high vibration vehicles, such as UAVs and helicopters, the resonator’s vibration sensitivity is the primary error source for navigation and radar systems.

A research and development company located in Malibu, California, HRL reached this milestone in its 17 years in operation.  Organized in December 1997 as a limited liability company from the former Hughes Research Laboratories, Inc., HRL began inventing with a clean slate.  The company’s first patent under its new name was issued on September 12, 2000.  In the last year, HRL was awarded an average of seven patents each month.

“This milestone is just one indication of HRL’S culture of innovation in service to the nation’s security and economic growth,” said Dr. Parney Albright, HRL’s President and CEO.  “We look forward to the exciting road ahead, moving towards our 1,000th patent. Our amazing world-class technical staff is truly what makes HRL a state-of-the-art research company.”

HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, California (hrl.com) is a corporate research-and-development laboratory owned by The Boeing Company and General Motors specializing in research into sensors and materials, information and systems sciences, applied electromagnetics, and microelectronics. HRL provides custom research and development and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC member companies, the U.S. government, and other commercial companies.

Media Inquiries: media[at]hrl.com, (310) 317-5000