US 6,206,564 · Granted 2001-03-27

The Pan That Knows When Your Food Is Done Cooking

Imagine a frying pan or pot that has a built-in thermometer in the bottom that tells you exactly how hot it is while you're cooking. This patent covers a clever way to embed a temperature sensor right into the bottom of a cooking utensil and wire it up so you can actually read the temperature without opening the pan or sticking in a separate thermometer.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers the specific design and assembly of a temperature sensor permanently installed in the bottom wall of a cooking utensil, along with the electrical wiring system that connects that sensor to an external electronic circuit. What's protected here is the method of securing the sensor and its conductors between the bottom wall and a perforated plate using cold pressing, which allows the sensor to measure cooking temperature without being removable.

Why it matters

This patent matters because it solves a real cooking problem: knowing the actual pan temperature during cooking. Before this, cooks relied on guesswork, separate thermometers, or trial and error. By integrating the sensor permanently into the utensil itself, this design makes temperature monitoring seamless and built-in rather than an afterthought. The cold-pressing assembly method was a practical way to hold everything in place without damaging the sensor through heat.

Real-world use

When you're searing a steak or tempering chocolate, you could glance at a digital display connected to your smart pan and know the exact bottom temperature instead of guessing whether it's hot enough.

Original USPTO abstract

A temperature sensor integrated into the bottom of a cooking utensil and the electrical conductors connecting the sensor to an electronic circuit extend between the wall that constitutes the bottom of the utensil and a perforated plate fixed to that wall by cold pressing.

Patent details

Publication number: US 6,206,564
Filing date: 1999-01-25
Grant date: 2001-03-27
Assignee: Seb Sa
Inventor(s): ADAMCZEWSKI DAVID
CPC class: A47J45/068

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