From the beginning of time, man has explored, experimented, invented ways to improve the
quality of life. Men and women of invention, innovation, imagination.
Hello, I'm Arcee Davis and this is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia,
just outside of Washington, D.C. The American patent system is one of the oldest activities
in the federal government. It was established by Congress, written to the Constitution to
protect an inventor by excluding others from making, using, or selling his invention.
The first patent was granted April 10th, 1790, for making potash and pearl ash,
two ingredients used in making soap.
Every day, inventors, people of vision, like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell,
Wilben Orville Wright, apply for patents to protect and secure their inventions.
Today, you'll meet other people of vision and ingenuity. They're not as familiar as our
most famous inventors, but you'll recognize some inventions and learn about new ones.
Lewis Howard Latimer was born in 1848. His father was a runaway slave who managed to
obtain his freedom and live in the Boston area. Lewis Latimer was a self-taught draftsman.
He learned his skill while working as a clerk for a patent attorney's office. Eventually,
he was promoted to chief draftsman. Around this time, Alexander Graham Bell hired Latimer
to draw renderings for various patent applications. Few people are aware of Latimer's
contribution to the field of electricity. He invented and received a patent in 1882
for an improved carbon filament to Thomas Edison's original filament for the electric lamp.
In 1918, he became a charter member of the Edison Pioneers, an exclusive organization
of scientists, technicians, and inventors who worked very closely with Thomas Edison.
Granville T. Woods was an exceptional inventor from Indiana. He holds 60 patents
relating to the railroad industry. His patents range from a steam boiler furnace,
a telephone transmitter, automatic air brakes to slow or stop trains, and overhead wires
used by cable cars and street cars. He invented more than a dozen devices to improve
electric railway cars. Granville Woods' most noted invention is the third rail system,
which is the power source to keep cars running. This is the same system that is used
in our subways today.
George Washington Carver was born to slave parents at Diamond Grove, Missouri,
about 1864, but was freed in infancy. George Washington Carver is known for his experiments
in plant chemistry and agriculture. He developed 300 products from peanuts,
118 products from sweet potatoes, and 60 products from pecans. Dr. Carver holds three patents
for processing paints and stains of superior color and sheen, and for producing cosmetics.
He also developed products such as bleach, shaving soap, lanolin, paper, and ink.
Dr. Carver dedicated his life to his experiments and studies in agriculture at a school
which is now the Tuskegee Institute at Tuskegee, Alabama.
Garrett Morgan is not a household word, but his patent affects our lives from one day to the next.
Garrett Morgan, an inventor from Cleveland, Ohio, designed and patented the traffic signal
to control the flow of traffic. His invention provided a mechanically controlled apparatus
to raise and lower signals to indicate a stop or go at regulated intervals.
Electric lamps illuminated the words giving the signal.
Garrett Morgan is also noted for his gas inhalator, or gas mask.
Various kinds of noxious gases were used during World War I.
Garrett Morgan's gas mask, as well as other versions, were used while troops fought in the trenches.
When the Nazis were storming across Europe during World War II,
a young doctor from Washington, D.C., was experimenting with methods of observing blood.
Charles Richard Drew developed and researched a revolutionary process of separating red blood cells
from the plasma and then storing it for later use.
Dr. Drew worked with the British military during the war and helped to establish mobile units
to provide plasma and emergency aid for the wounded at the front lines.
After World War II, Dr. Drew was appointed the first medical director of the American Red Cross blood bank.
The patent system is a major link in the technology chain.
It provides financial incentives for inventors, business investors,
who know that their achievements are safe from exploitation by others.
Minority inventors have made a significant contribution to our nation's technology,
as well as to our business growth, by providing thousands of jobs for American workers.
And dedicated scientists continue to work hard, develop their ideas,
and experiment until the dream becomes reality.
And this is where the dream begins.
There are over four and a half million patents filed at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Every patent is assigned a number given in the classification and stored here in these stacks.
All of these documents are available to the public for research on any patent filed in America.
Today, computers are being used in homes, schools, police and fire departments,
hospitals, and all areas of public and private business and industry
to improve the quality and efficiency of processing information.
Research in computer technology was making advances
when an immigrant from China began graduate studies at Harvard University.
When you buy word processing from Wang,
you get more than just the best-selling word processing in the world.
You get an easy-to-use system that opens the door to the world of office automation.
The results of Dr. Wang's creative geniuses touched all forms of American life.
Even worldwide communication.
Dr. Arn Wang, founder of Wang Laboratories in Lowell, Massachusetts,
is the mastermind behind the original development of the basic components
and systems of digital computer machines.
Eight, seven, six. We have main engine start.
Three, two, one. Solid motor ignition and lift-off.
As high technology continues to advance,
minority inventors continue to play a significant role in development and research.
Philip V. Stevens, president of Ultra Systems Incorporated,
is a member of the Oglala Sioux Indian Tribe.
His dreams and ideas have resulted in a number of patents for defense systems.
During the early phase of the United States Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program,
there were only two large intercontinental ballistic missiles,
and both of them used liquid propellants for rocket propulsion.
This missile is a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile
of one of the early vintages of a liquid-propelled missile.
These missiles are characterized by a rocket propulsion system
in which the rocket nozzles could swing or vector.
No one knew how to control the thrust vector from a rocket nozzle
that used solid rocket engine technology.
Here's a typical solid rocket engine nozzle.
One of the concepts in my invention was a concept that would cause the thrust vector
to deflect, which would give a missile the ability to control and fly in all different angles.
After going through Miniman 1, 2, and 3, I did decide that I wanted to do other things
besides just missile development, and then I took the big step of forming my own company.
At that time, it was just a one-man company, and we now have about 1,300 people on the staff.
Good people tend to gravitate more and more to the company
because we are very people-sensitive. We care a lot about our people.
When I started, I had aspirations of doing other things to really help the nation's society,
things in the field of energy and safety-related activities.
This is a model of an advanced wood-fired power plant that Ultrasystems Inc. has pioneered
so that waste wood materials can be productively consumed and utilized to generate electricity.
Well, I think that it is possible for anyone in the United States to take their dreams
and create it into realities. If I'm an example of that, a kid that brought up on the wrong side of the tracks
that was able to work hard and to create dreams that I had into realities, others can do it too.
And I think that the key to that is to persevere and to be determined to succeed.
The American Indian is a very disadvantaged group of people.
The American Indian is suffering from all types of hardships, from high suicide rates,
high infant mortality rates, high unemployment, and it's really difficult for them.
So I'm really looking forward to the opportunity of going back to the Sioux Indian Reservation
and to talk to the relatives of my forefathers and to see if I can be of assistance to the young people there.
Isidore Martinez Martinez is an inventor with a background in aerospace engineering and missile design.
He turned from missile technology to medicine, specifically knee implants for victims of arthritis.
Knee implants on the market today have a fairly low success rate.
Mr. Martinez's patent on a knee implant could revolutionize technology in developing artificial components.
My knee is designed to produce a longevity within the patient,
allow him the complete freedom of his knee and the normal use, abduction, adduction, rotation, extension, and flexion.
The knee is the most pivotal, important joint in the body, and without it you cannot be able to live a near normal life.
In our earlier development, we had quite a lot of bone removal that we had.
We do not have this any longer, but this is a good example of showing how the prosthesis is assembled.
We put a structural member into the middle line and then engage it with a secondary structural barrel section
that forms a support in the chondral area.
Then we do the same type of construction within the tibia.
As soon as you've completed this, then you have a completely assembled device.
This demonstrates the principle of our invention.
So we have gone further, and here is an x-ray.
We have worked with primates at the Tulane University Bivarium.
At the medical school, this is a normal primate limb.
One of the three primates that was implanted, we were able to sustain him for five years.
He was able to produce every function, including some that humans won't have to do,
such as hanging upside down or climbing trees.
Here's the latest on the travelers' advisory.
Traffic is slow due to dense fog.
As the morning progresses, we'll be seeing a warming trend, and the fog should burn off by noon.
If you're flying out of the city, expect some delays.
You know, in this country, the airlines are reportedly losing about $300 million a year
because of diverted flights when airports get socked in with fog.
They burn up fuel, and they have to go to alternate airports.
And so this could mean a bottom-line savings to them at normal fuel prices
of about $300 million a year, so it's important to get rid of it.
Dr. Gordine's latest patent is a fog dispersal system specifically for airport runways.
Small boxes line each side of the runway about an eighth of a mile apart.
Each box contains a small generator that shoots compressed air about 300 feet into the fog.
The air is charged with negative ions and mixes with the neutral fog particles.
The negative ions charge the fog particles, which in turn are attracted to the positive ions on the ground.
Essentially, it rains, and the air is cleared of fog, which gives a pilot clearance for takeoff and landing.
As soon as the airplane can see the landing lights from, say, 300 feet up
and, say, a mile away from the strip, well, of course, the airport's open.
He can see. There's no reason to worry about fog at all.
When I went up to Cornell as a freshman, I wanted to go into engineering physics,
but in the meantime, I concentrated on track and field.
I got to be captain of the team, All-American, in a couple of events,
hurdles, intermediate hurdles, low hurdles, and in the broad jump.
In 1952, I went to the Olympic Games, and I got a silver medal in the broad jump.
I missed the gold medal by four centimeters.
It was very frustrating, but it was a very, very fulfilling experience to go over there.
Two zero times one two five equal.
Dr. Gaudin is president of Energy Innovations, Incorporated.
Although he has become progressively blind over the last ten years,
he continues to develop his theories of electro-gas dynamics.
Presently, he holds over 50 patents worldwide.
This inventor is Mrs. Mildred Austin Smith of Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Smith has been a victim of multiple sclerosis for the past 20 years.
Despite her confinement to a wheelchair, Mrs. Smith continues to play a very active role in her church.
Mrs. Smith invented a unique genealogy game, which teaches family relationships for people of all ages.
This is a logo of the game, Family Tradition.
It was my idea about it.
It just came to me all of a sudden one day about relatives.
I got the thing. I said, my mother's sister is my aunt.
Just like that.
My grandmother's son is my father.
Terry and Thomas, we have a lot of cards on the table.
After I started developing it, I went to church one day,
and I got my son as a minister, and he brought two of the kids I told him I wanted to test them on the game.
And surprisingly, they knew nothing about relationships, which I think is so important to know about the relationship.
My grandmother's daughter is my mother.
It keeps that closeness with the family when you know what can this person, even with cousins,
if I know that you're my fourth cousin, I have a warm feeling towards you.
The 1950s was an era of innovation and discovery.
America turned its optimistic eye to the future.
We discovered microencapsulation in the 50s.
Carbonous paper is a result of microencapsulation.
When you write on the paper, microcapsules of carbon are released onto the next copy and leave a dry impression.
It doesn't smear.
Robert Bayless, president of Capsulated Systems Incorporated, has enhanced and patented this process of microencapsulation.
It is a method of mixing two solutions that have opposite qualities,
such as oil and water, and encapsulating the product with a protective shell.
When oil is mixed with water, the oil forms an emulsion of tiny beads.
A polymer, such as polyvinyl alcohol, is introduced into the water phase, surrounds the beads, and forms a protective wall.
The walls are hardened through a chemical treatment to ensure stability.
When the water is drained off and the beads are dried, a powdery residue is left, which is, in fact, microencapsulated beads of oil.
Of the many applications of microencapsulation, one can think of the agricultural industry,
the industrial industry, pharmaceuticals, foods, flavors, medicines.
I'm going to show you dry water.
This indicator paper will turn blue if there's water present.
Watch me crush it.
Voila, blue paper, presence of water.
Capsulated Systems has developed a chemical locking device for threaded fasteners.
This material has been applied to a threaded fastener so that when a nut is screwed upon the thread,
the epoxy reacts with its curing agent and chemically locks itself within 24 hours, such that the nut will not be removed.
I am placing on this piece of paper some microencapsulated inorganic dye.
With that in the second bottle, I'm placing a co-reactive, an acid.
As I break these capsules, I generate ink.
Microencapsulation is such a large, large area that I cannot perform or cover its capability in my short lifetime.
This thing is, this whole concept of microencapsulation is starting.
It's in its infancy.
And I think that, and hope and dream, that there will be some youngsters, high school, college, and graduates,
who will pursue this technology to its fullest extent in their own way, in their own time.
One can hold a flame close to microencapsulated gasoline and not have it burn.
I demonstrated one principle that I have eliminated, if not reduced, the availability of vapor.
The vapor around a volatile solution is the cause of explosions.
So you see the technology goes on and on, all for the purpose of just bettering mankind.
Creating new technology is difficult, but obstacles can be overcome as we've learned from these people.
Each of them had a dream, and they pursued that dream until it became a reality.
Abraham Lincoln said, the patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.
As we approach the last decade of the century, we hand the torch of innovation and imagination
to a new generation of creators, potential inventors, people like you, who pursue their dreams until they become reality.
My invention is the bullet grabber, and the pilot is supposed to be the person who finds the wars, and he sits up here.
And then when he spots them, he sends a message down to these two guys who operate the magnet.
One is supposed to pick up, like, the little guns and rifles, and this is supposed to pick up the big bombs and cannonballs.
My invention is a phone for blind people.
I thought that if there was a phone for blind people, that I wouldn't have to call for my grandfather.
And so I made big numbers.
I put foil over an umbrella, and the person would be cooler than using a regular umbrella.
I thought a little about it and said to Lisa, if only I had a drawstring shower curtain, I just could have pulled the string without standing.
This is how it closes by just pulling the string.
My invention is the no-hands umbrella.
I got the idea because my mother didn't like to hold an umbrella, so I hooked it to my back,
and I got this little tube, and I put it in, and I got these belts, and I just strapped it to me.
Do-do-do-do!
Do-do-do-do!