February 2007
Patent Pending
Local inventors are keeping up with the Edisons
By Laura Freeman

Eye Lighting employees Paul Jurkovic, vice president of manufacturing operations, and Peter Ness, manager of technology and product development, have their names on at least one patent. They are always working on their next invention. Photo by Toby Shingleton

Some inventions have changed the world, while others never made it further than the inventor’s basement workbench. Some inventors work for large corporations while others are stay-at-home moms and retirees. Derry Stauffer is a local patent agent. He sees them all. An engineer for 26 years, Stauffer was looking for a new line of work when he ran into a patent attorney willing to train him.

I found I liked it, so I studied for the patent bar exam, passed and became a registered patent agent,” he said. Stauffer’s background in physics and engineering in a manufacturing environment means he often handles patents for mechanical devices and processes, simple electrical devices and computer software.

Recent examples are toys/games, golf accessories, a removable DVD player shelf for a car, an elastic leg sling, and a light fixture mounting that can be brought down to ground level for bulb changing. “The Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals are churning out a lot of medical device and procedure patents,” Stauffer said.

He said area companies and universities are receiving a lot of support in biotech, fuel cell and polymer research and development. “Northeast Ohio is trying to become a center of growth in those areas, so there will probably be an upward trend in patents for them,” he said.

Patent assistance

Patent agents can do almost everything a patent attorney does except sue and write legal contracts. One major difference is price – Stauffer charges $150 an hour; he said attorneys charge $300-$500 an hour. He writes and files patent applications, a complicated process Stauffer says is harder than writing a term paper. The application must include a description detailed enough that someone could copy the invention. It also requires background on what has been done before, an explanation of the need for it and the problem it will solve.

Before a patent is granted, the application sits in a queue for a couple of years until an examiner looks at it. During that time inventors can label their invention “patent pending.” Examiners search all previous patents to determine if the invention is new and not just a copy of something done before. Inventors get a limited monopoly in exchange for revealing their invention to the world. Others can work with the invention to do research and invent new ideas that go beyond the original invention.

“Patent law is so important that it was built into the U.S. Constitution,” Stauffer said. “This technology advancing process has been a very important part of countries all over the world.”

Local inventors Paul Jurkovic is vice president of manufacturing engineering at Eye Lighting International in Mentor, a Japanese-owned division of Iwasaki Electric headquartered in Tokyo.

Eye Lighting manufactures industrial light bulbs, or lamps, for use in high bay applications like warehouses and stadiums, and those used to light highways and parking lots. Jurkovic is the primary inventor on a patent for a process that has eliminated lead soldering from these types of lamps. What was traditionally a soldered connection now is a lead-free welded connection. Eye Lighting inventors David Myers and David Westenfelder also are listed on the patent.

 “One of the benefits of our invention is we have alleviated the backend product,” Jurkovic said. “It’s got a really good environmental aspect to it. Prior to our invention, when a lamp was burned out and you threw it away in a dumpster and it ended up in a landfill, the lead would leach out into the groundwater.” Tim Green is an engineer with Philips Medical Systems in Highland Heights, formerly Marconi and Picker International. Green, a Madison resident, has two patents under his belt for Philips, one on which he was the primary inventor and the other on which he was the co-inventor.

Both inventions have to do with improving the resolution of X-rays without having to move the patient. Green says invention is simply a case of being in the right place at the right time.

“I was the one who came up with the solution because I had the right background,” he said. “A lot of coming up with solutions is like that. Having the right tools, the right knowledge and being where the problem is or just seeing the problem. I’m not even sure if anyone saw it as a problem until I came up with the solution because everyone was just doing it the same way. It’s a matter of being able to see through the clutter.” Green said engineers in his field of medical imaging are always doing creative things.

“You get lucky if something is patentable,” he said.

Creative juices But what would life be like without that natural inquisitiveness and yearning for improvement?

Euclid resident Laura Gordos is director of finance and administration at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. While still a student in the executive MBA program at Case, she and fellow student Steven Garfield needed a project for an entrepreneurial marketing class. Garfield had an idea that grew from helping his parents to the airport with their suitcases.

“Steven is not a big guy and he struggled to get the bags into his trunk,” Gordos said. “He thought there should be an easier way to get things in and out of the trunk.” She and Garfield formed Personal Loading Advantages and are now developing their ideas for the real world. Their products are for loading items in and out of a vehicle.

The first is called the Back-Saving Load Lifter. It is motorized and lifts about 100 pounds up to 4 feet high in less than seven seconds. They have the design concepts for two other ideas, complete with artists’ renderings and conceptual models, but no prototypes yet. What does Gordos like about the invention process?

“It’s a chance to use your creativity and problem-solving skills,” she said. “I like all the people we’ve met along the way. Derry (Stauffer) helped us a lot and so did the professors at Weatherhead and the people at MAGNET (Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network).”

To market, to market You can invent a better mousetrap, but if no one knows about it, what good is it?

Inventors at large corporations have an easier time with the process of taking an invention from concept to implementation, as they often have built-in R&D departments complete with engineers and manufacturing capabilities. Single inventors have a more difficult time finding ways of getting their ideas from the workbench to retail shelves. Inventors need engineers, graphic designers, manufacturers and marketing companies. They need to test market their products and often need to redesign their original prototype.

Gordos said the process is not as easy as it might seem. “Everything takes so much longer than you originally think it will,” she said. “What seems like a simple step can be so difficult.”

When Gordos and Garfield first talked to product development groups they found just getting their ideas turned into engineering drawings took a long time. “It seemed like it would be an easy project but there were all kinds of technical difficulties,” she said. “Since neither Steven nor I have an engineering background that’s been a little bit of a struggle for us.”

They have been shopping their ideas around trying to find a manufacturer to produce it and get it ready for market. “We have one company evaluating it right now and are looking at others to see if anyone else is interested as well,” she said.

Venture capitalists like Hambden Township resident Ray Kralovic have resources to offer inventors like Gordos, but first they have to believe in you and your product.

Finding funding Kralovic is the inventor of the original Steris Corp. sterilization process. He left Mentor-based Steris in 1994. Since then, his company K & Associates, a business development/venture funding company, has invested in a number of small companies.

They include www.groovycandies.com, an Internet supplier of classic candy collections; 1-800-GOURMET, a company that has hard-to-find recipe ingredients; and Applitech, a Mayfield Village manufacturer of a portable surface cleaning device on sale at Rite Aid drug stores. Another company, Trivium Technologies, with international headquarters in Cleveland, has developed a type of highly reflective film that will make it possible to read things such as a cell phone without a backlight.

Kralovic never has to look for companies to invest in. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “They just come out of the woodwork.”

He decides with great difficulty which companies to invest in. He has worked with people he thought he knew pretty well only to find out their business practices didn’t coincide with his. “I look at the technology, and then I look at the people,” he said. “The hardest thing to evaluate is the people.”

He has had as many successes as failures. A microchip company on Tyler Boulevard in Mentor failed because the owners didn’t understand the market, which changed before they could get the product fully developed. Aside from personal funds, Gordos and Garfield were able to take advantage of the Cuyahoga County New Product Development and Entrepreneurship Loan Fund. The fund sponsors new and existing companies with product development loans. It is not necessary to live in Cuyahoga County to be eligible.

Developed by the Cuyahoga County Department of Development and administered by MAGNET, the fund has provided $2 million in loan funds for new product development so far. Loans are offered for three stages of the product development process – feasibility, design and engineering. Gordos and Garfield received a $60,000 loan to develop their product.

“It’s really hard to get funding that is less than a million or two,” Gordos said. “It’s hard to get an investor interested because it’s just as much work to oversee something small as it is something bigger.”

Inventing advice Kralovic says don’t let anyone steal your dreams, or your ideas, and don’t give up. He says the Internet makes the process a lot easier.

“Keep after it. Network, talk with a lot of people, try to figure out what it takes to get the job done. Keep a log of what you’re doing by sending e-mails to yourself or someone you can trust. And you don’t want to be reinventing the wheel. You want to research so you don’t spend all kinds of time inventing a better widget if someone else has already developed it.”

Read about more local inventors and inventors groups at www.lakebusinessjournal.com.

Laura Freeman is editor of the Lake County Business Journal.