Hi all,
It is Friday (again

) and time for another set of updates.
The Gem Updates:Better patent news from Canada: After last weeks very frustrating news from Australia, this week we received word from the Canadian patent office that after a quick review of our patent re-exam request, it meets their basic format requirements and so they have formed a committee of 3 patent examiners to review.
So, basically we have passed step 1 of 3. The next step - this 3 person committee will review the filing and decide whether or not we have raised enough issues to proceed into a full re-exam. We will hear on that within 3 months.
Anyway, some progress forward on that front.
Amora Gem Krupps cut patent filed: As I was working on the blog earlier this afternoon, received an email from our patent atty that the Krupps was now officially patent pending (US 13/482,198)...so with that news, I postponed the next 'fundamentals of matter' update to bring you the first look at the Amora Gem Krupps cut.
Thus, without further delay, the Amora Gem Krupps:
and video - note that again, the step cut videos just did not come out so well and we are planning to reshoot these with production Amora Gems in the Fall. But, a video is better than none for now:
With this last patent application filed, we now officially have 5 patents pending for the Amora Gem!
BTD General News:Avarra H&A round sapphires and H&A cushions: We have decided to go ahead and expand the H&A round sapphires that are coming up and include some H&A cushion cuts as well.
These are basically the Amora Gem H&A cushion cut but optimized for sapphire, and also cut exclusively by Mr. Robot.
Our master cutter has been really pleased with the sapphire rough, and we're currently testing which axis to center the rough on before we get production cutting with Mr. Robot underway.
But, these should be starting to roll out in the next 2-3 weeks!
Ring Explorer updates: Lots of additional progress this week highlighted by the start of phase 3 - the birth of the bots!
To clarify - in order to ensure that Ring Explorer stays in sync and up to date with all the underlying rings it is able to search, it must be able to check for pricing changes, availability changes, and of course updated reviews or other info.
The way it does this is with bots (sometimes called spiders as well). If you look for example at the top left of these forums, you'll see a reference under "who's online" to the number of users, but also 'spiders'. These are bots sent out by the search engines like Google and Bing, in order to keep up to date with the forums or all websites really.
Anyway, our first bots were created this past weekend by yours truly, and they've already been updating reviews and will play a key role going forward as they continue to grow in intelligence and as Ring Explorer expands it's coverage of all the rings on the web.
Ring Explorer in action: With the continued updates, I wanted to show how Ring Explorer works in comparison to some of the underlying sites including BTD. I actually did this just as a random test, but it worked out nicely as an example.
Example - you want to search and review some trellis rings (the style of prongs where they sweep and interlace on the sides).
So, I search on BTD.com, which has trellis rings, and get:
and then JamesAllen.com, which also has trellis rings, and get:
And now Ring Explorer - enter the search:
and now we are getting somewhere:
Note how RE inteprets your search and then shows you what it searched on and exposes related options for you to then refilter if you like (the left hand set of options in the above screenshot).
And of course, if you then decide to search on 'Trellis Oval Rings', you then get the only trellis oval rings (in this case 1, since that’s the only one currently

Anyway, we are continuing to improve it and wanted to show some of its improving search prowess.
Green Moissanite, not from Charles and Colvard: Lastly, wanted to show some new moissanite that we are currently evaluating…this is native green moissanite, grown elsewhere. We may begin selling it but the same restrictions would apply as for Amora gem - many countries would not be able to purchase until their respective patents expire (or are removed).
A photo:
and summary cert:
More details on that as we continue to review.
Misc: Since the Krupps news took precedence, I'll have to postpone the next edition of the fundamentals of matter until next week.
Have a great weekend!
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