Kooima Ag Patents Feed Mixer Knife

Our firm recently helped one of our clients, Kooima Ag of Rock Valley, Iowa in obtaining U.S. Patent No. 11,044,852 on an “AGRICULTURAL KNIFE WITH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SERRATIONS.”  This patent covers a “knife” utilized on a livestock feed mixer, which has a large tub with a large rotating auger (similar to the agitator in a top loading washer) to chop and mix hay and other feed ingredients placed in the tub.  Knives are mounted on the outer edges of the auger to cut the hay into smaller pieces. The knives are not particularly sharp, and would not cut you if you touched it, but are exposed to abrasive materials that can quickly wear on the edge of the knife.  Many years ago, Kooima Ag patented a knife with teeth “inserts” formed of very hard carbide material, and was recently seeking to improve the cutting effectiveness of its knifes by increasing the number of edge transitions on the cutting edge.  The conventional approach would be to simply make the carbide inserts smaller to make room for additional inserts along the cutting edge.  However, this would greatly increase the time and cost involved to attach the inserts to the knife base by brazing.  Instead, Kooima Ag developed a carbide insert with multiple serrations to increase the number of edge transitions without actually having to increase the number of carbide inserts attached to the knife base.

Written By: Jeffrey A. Proehl