Papertech to Develop Champion's Web Monitoring Patent Products

Papertech Inc., Vancouver, B.C., USA, this week reported it has signed a license agreement with Monitoring Technology Corp. (MTC), to develop, manufacture, and commercialize products under the "Champion Patents" (Champion International, now International Paper). According to the agreement, Papertech is licensed to sell its full range of WebVision web monitoring and inspection solutions to paper mills around the world. Beginning in March 1995, Champion had filed a series of patent applications, "System for monitoring a continuous manufacturing process," which was subsequently approved in February 1998 under U.S. Patent 5717456. Further patents were filed around the world (19 in total) and are now in force in several countries, including Canada, France, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, and Chile.

A web monitoring system (WMS) contains a network of high-speed video cameras linked to a computer running specialized software that controls the acquisition, storage, and synchronization of video from each of the cameras. Papertech's WebVision Digital product, when combined with a web inspection (WIS) solution such as Papertech's WebInspector, provides a total machine vision integrated solution to resolving various paper break, defect, and other paper machine production and quality robbing issues. TotalVision WMS, with its WIS solution, now automatically identifies and classifies defects, and then rapidly allows the papermaker to identify the root cause of the defect all the way to the wet end of the paper machine.