Local inventors frustrated over patent office bureacracy

by Sanden Totten, Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. — Inventors are frustrated at the back log of ideas awaiting approval from the U.S. Patent Office, who last quarter rejected more than half of all of the patents they reviewed.

Imagine if you had thought up the next light bulb or iPhone for that matter; an invention that could make you rich and possibly goose the economy too. But something stood in your way: getting a patent.

Sometimes innovation is a gift and sometimes, it's more like a curse.

"I don't sleep much" said inventor Bill Kurtz. " I use to wake up and think about girls and sex and now I wake up and think about those damn inventions."

Kurtz has over a dozen inventions on the market; everything from a better horse feeder to plans for a magnetic mass transit system. Kurtz has been churning out ideas for years, but he says it is times like these, recession and all, when it pays to be an inventor.

"Actually this is a perfect time for inventors because of the economy, and manufacturers are looking for products and new ways to generate revenue so they can keep their employees going" Kurtz said.

That means making new products, and for that you need guys like Kurtz or one of the other 60 or so people at the monthly meeting of the Minnesota Inventors Network.

The group meets at Dunwoody Technical College in Minneapolis to swap stories and share tricks of the trade. You've got farmers in overalls chatting with business women in blazers. Scientists are gabbing with construction workers and everyone has a big idea.

"My invention is a retractable audio system designed for outdoor rooms and patios . . . "

"I have a tool called the 'Paint-Behind' which paints behind toilets . . ."

"Mine is a shower caddy and support device, mine's corner mounted . . ."

OK, a lot of these are modest advances in technology, but you could say these inventors are trying to meet a very real need. Take Pam Cole for instance, she said her invention sprang from a problem she was facing in her own life. She's got her proto-type tucked neatly into a small hat box and she's about to show it off.

"But I want to preface it with it's a medical device. Okay? So we're going to have a conversation about something sensitive," Cole said. "But you can handle it . . . right? So this is an intra-vaginal cooling device for when a woman has vaginal inflammation."

It's not for everyone, but Pam Cole is physical therapist and certified wound specialist. She's confident her inter-vaginal device could save a lot of women a lot grief. So, her invention is just one quick patent away from hitting the shelves of your local pharmacy right? Wrong.

"I finally officially filed in 2005," she said. "But they are really inundated, apparently they are really overwhelmed so I've been waiting for my patent. And no one will really want to invest with you unless you've protected the property. So I've been waiting on that."

Patent attorney Roger Belfay said the U.S. Patent Office is a bottleneck for new inventions.

"The biggest single roadblock for the American Inventor is the delay going through the patent office," Belfay said. "It's just standing in line waiting for the patent office to do something. That uncertainty diminishes the value of every invention."

But this is America, the country that brought you the light bulb, the Ford Model T and the Slanket. How would we let the path to innovation get so clogged?

"How it happened was for years and years the patent office was treated as a cash cow by Congress" Belfay said. "The fees that they would charge actually went into a general fund for the most part, and so they couldn't hire examiner they couldn't improve equipment and so they finally got way behind."

Congress stopped siphoning money from the Patent Office in 2004, but Belfay said there are still years of catching up to do. Add that hurdle to the cost of producing your product, marketing it, getting it in stores and protecting yourself from liability; all with only faint chance of making a profit and you start to wonder if you have to be crazy to be an inventor.

Pam Cole said that's kind of true.

"There is a compulsion. There is something wrong with us. There is a voice in our heads somewhere and it does drive you forward." Cole said. "I know it sounds kind of corny but I feel like I am the representative of the idea fairy and this is my thing to give to the world."

And aren't we all better off because people do listen to those idea fairies?

Broadcast Dates

• All Things Considered, 10/01/2009, 5:24 p.m.