Patent, Trademark & Copyright : Law Office of Kloss, Stenger & LoTempio

As a Buffalo copyright attorney I meet many new authors. A childhood friend of mine recently published a book of songs he wrote and I asked him to share some of his thoughts about the publishing process with my LoTempio law blog readers.

Here is what Alan Gembola had to say:

Can you give us a little background about yourself and how you decided you wanted to be an author of a book?

I’ve always loved music and listening to the radio. In the early 70’s I heard the rock operas ‘Tommy’ & ‘Quadrophenia’ by The Who; at that point I wanted to write.

I eventually got some words down on paper (mostly trash) but kept trying. I was further motivated by Peter Gabriel’s (Genesis) ‘Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ & bands like Roxy Music (plus a little encouragement from friends).

Eventually I just wrote because it was fun. Around 2001, I decided to make a serious attempt at writing a diverse collection of song lyrics; a unique collection that had a CD & perhaps author notes & illustrations, the seed for ‘Silver & Leather’ was planted.

Ten years later, and a lot of long writing & recording sessions, “Silver & Leather’ is in stock and ready to ship from  Amazon and released on Christmas Day 2011.

How did you find a publisher?

I self-published Silver & Leather. Trying to find a publisher (for a first book author) – I felt – would have taken a lot of resources, with no guarantee of success. I decided to direct what limited resources I did have into creating, publishing, promoting, & distributing ‘Silver & Leather’.

What are some of things you learned about getting the book published?

Besides the numerous technical challenges I faced (with software, printing techniques, font conflicts, CD creation, laptops crashing, etc.) the biggest thing I’ve learned is once you do publish, the project isn’t over; the hard work of marketing and distribution is just beginning.

Can you put together a checklist of things a new writer should know and do?

Here are a few tips that helped me write & publish ‘Silver & Leather’:

• I learned from lyric writing, a good first step is to have a title, theme, or concept.
• Visualize, based on your title/theme/concept, what the finished product will be.
• Start writing (and have fun doing it!) – try to do a little every day (if you’re waiting for “inspiration” to write, you will probably never publish your book).
• Once you feel confident that you’re actually on-track to finish the book, publicly announce a release date – this was a critical step for me and forced me to push myself, to the point of exhaustion, to meet this date.
• When your first draft is complete – edit, edit, edit, edit, edit!
• It doesn’t cost too much to write a song lyric or book; but, publishing does cost. Expect to spend a little money along the way – printing fees, ISBN purchases, copyrights, software needs, giveaways, promotions, and in my case, CD labeling & creation/packaging costs, etc., etc...
• Cut a pre-release (beta copy) and send it select individuals for feedback – this really helped me a lot!
• Once you have the final, final, final version of your book – assign it an ISBN number & bar-code – you are now considered published and can copyright your book as such.

What were the most difficult things you had to overcome to write the book and get it published? What were the things you enjoyed the most about putting the book together?

Silver & Leather was over 9 years in the making; so, most of the actual song lyrics were already written (and many of the vocal tracks were recorded in 2006) – but – organizing them all into a standard format, making last minute corrections, and adding the author notes & CD created some challenges.

As far as the actual publishing, the most difficult obstacle was creating a master file for printing; any little changes can really confuse the printing process. What was enjoyable throughout all this was watching, slowly but surely, my original vision for ‘Silver & Leather’ coming to fruition in every detail.

What would you do differently if you had to do it over again?

Next time I’ll use a lot more outside people and resources. For ‘Silver & Leather’ I’ve done almost every job in the writing, publishing, & producing processes. I won’t for example, edit the book myself or manufacture and package the CD’s for the next project.

What were some of the administrative challenges?

90% of the lyrics were previously registered with the US Copyright Office in 3 different volumes as “unpublished” works (2004, 2005, & 2011). I also was going to copyright a sound recording (‘Silver & Leather The CD’) for the first time with a few new lyrics and other contributing artists.

Somehow, I wanted to combine the entire package into a single copyright for ‘Silver & Leather’ – including the CD. Now that ISBN numbers are assigned, I can proceed with the single copyright for the “published” collection.

What are some of the marketing techniques you use to get your book noticed?

I started with teasers about the release date and progress of the project on Facebook. I then issued a pre-release package of materials to select individuals encouraging them to provide feedback to info@gembolalyrics.com and to share the materials with family & friends.

I opened a website gembolalyrics.com (which by the way is the official publishing company of ‘Silver & Leather’) that provides a link to my exclusive Amazon distributor, Insight Media.

Finally, I created a special workbook edition of ‘Silver & Leather’ designed specifically for my #1 target audience – musical composers. My distributor & I have a lot of great marketing ideas and will have the 2012 plan in place by the end of January.

Who proofread and edited your book for you?

I did the editing myself – never again – a very time consuming and inefficient process that I’m sure didn’t catch all the details it needed to. As far as the research of names, dates, and events called out in the author notes and song lyrics, they were checked by the new internet research company www.onlythefactsman.com.

Are you considering writing a second book? How did you get on Amazon? How did you get an ISBN number?

I have plenty of ideas for a second project but will probably spend most of 2012 promoting ‘Silver & Leather”

I was very fortunate to partner with the well-established, highly rated, Amazon seller, insight_media, who is currently the exclusive distributor for ‘Silver & Leather’s’ hardcover edition, special workbook edition, and electronic edition; insight_media specializes in books and CD’s.

No book critic, retail or online book outlet, library, or school is going to recognize your work without an ISBN number (along with a bar-code, indicating the retail price) assigned to each edition; this serves to clearly identify the details (like binding & number of pages) of your book for the buyers’ information.

ISBN numbers and bar-codes are sold to publishers. In my case I self-published (Gembolalyrics.com) and purchased a block of 10 ISBN numbers and three bar-codes from Bowker (an authorized broker company); as far as I know, this is the only place you can get an ISBN in the United States. If you have a publisher, they will probably have a number & barcode for you.

Is there anything that you would like to share that I didn't ask regarding the process of writing a book and getting it published for sale?

I just want to say thank you to LoTempioLaw.com for the interview and suggest we get together again in a year to see how the marketing plans have worked out. 

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Even though a jury ruled that the software that runs the famous Facebook site infringed on the patent of Leader Technologies, Facebook still won the case. The reply appeal brief was just filed last month.

I think the issues in this case are relevant for all inventors. Inventors should be aware that disclosure of their invention prior to filing a patent application could invalidate the patent after it is allowed.

If you are an inventor and you have an idea and you want to "get it out there" into the market, you better file a patent application less than one year after you offer it for sale, publish it anywhere or use it in public.

On November 19, 2008, Leader filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook alleging infringement of United States Patent No. 7,139,761 (Leader Technologies, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., (D.Del. 2008). Fed. Cir. Case No. 2011-1366). On July 28, 2010, the jury rendered a verdict that Facebook infringed all of the asserted patent claims and that the claims were neither anticipated nor obvious in light of the prior art. But the jury also ruled that even though Facebook directly and literally infringed on the patent...the patent was invalid because of 102(b) disclosures.

A patent is invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) if the patentee publicly used or offered for sale a product that embodied the patented invention more than one year before filing the patent application.

The jury found the patent invalid on the theory that Leader had publicly used the patented invention and offered it for sale more than one year before filing the patent application.

Leader Technologies is an innovative software company based in Columbus, Ohio. Chairman and founder Michael McKibben created Leader in 1997 with the goal of using "the internet as a platform for doing large scale communications and collaboration."

At that time, the internet was in its infancy, with the number of users measured in the mere millions. Leader recognized the untapped potential of the internet-"an unclaimed market space"-and moved to enter that marketplace.

Leader won the part of the trial that most people would think would be the most important: Leader won on "literal infringement" of 11 of 11 patent claims and no published prior art regarding Leader's U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761 (PDF).

In other words, the engine running Facebook is Leader's invention. But Facebook won because of a statutory bar called "on sale bar and public disclosure."

The case is now on appeal to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. The appeal briefs have been filed and a date for oral argument is going to be set. The Leader brief (PDF) argues that Facebook had no evidence of sale/public disclosure and confused the jury with court room theatrics. The Facebook brief (PDF) argues their evidence was "substantial."

It is pretty unbelievable that this case has not gotten more publicity.

The case raises many questions:

• Could  Mark Zuckerberg have invented Facebook in "one or two weeks" while studying for finals?
• Is it just a coincidence that Leader inventor's son Max was in the dorm next to Zuck?
• Could Zuckerberg have hacked into the inventor's son's Harvard email account that described McKibben's invention which Zuck just mimicked and launched a month later?
• Is there evidence that Facebook had to wait until the Leader patent published in the summer of 2004 to add the "groups functionality" in Facebook because they couldn't figure out how to do it without the patent?

But none of the questions of who invented really matter now because of the statutory bar. Perhaps Leader can overturn the jury's decision. The blog "Origin of Facebook's Technology?" breaks down the appeal briefs and points out all the weaknesses in the Facebook arguments. Perhaps the blog is a little one-sided, I wonder what the agenda is? But who knows what's going happen in this case.

The lesson every inventor should take away from this case is: file your patent application as soon as possible.

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Inventor Robert N. Noyce  

Born Dec 12 1927 - Died Jun 3 1990

Invention: Semiconductor Device-and-Lead Structure Integrated Circuit
Patent Number 2,981,877 (PDF)

Inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame™ in 1983

Often referred to as the Mayor of Silicone Valley, Robert Norton Noyce developed the integrated circuit chip, or the microchip, that makes personal computers and other everyday technologies that we take for granted possible.

 Noyce not only left a legacy through his inventions, but also through mentoring fellow Silicone Valley entrepreneurs among the ranks of Steve Jobs.

This past week on the anniversary of his birthday, Google honored Noyce, making their Google doodle resemble an integrated circuit.

Invention Impact

Noyce was truly a visionary, revolutionizing the world of electronics; today, integrated circuits are used in almost all electrical equipment.

The invention was a major improvement over the manual assembly of electric circuits, and mass production made electronic devices cheaper and more common.

Now the integrated circuit is broken into many more categories based on what the chip does. For example, the microprocessor is an integrated circuit that processes all the information in a computer.

One of the most mind-boggling characteristics of these microchips is the evolution of the integrated circuit has continued in respect to the size; the most advanced circuits contain several hundreds of millions of circuit components on an area no larger than a fingernail!

The former Apple Inc. CEO told Leslie Berlin, author of "The Man Behind the Microchip",

"Bob Noyce took me under his wing. I was young, in my twenties. He was in his early fifties. He tried to give me the lay of the land, give me a perspective that I could only partially understand." The late Jobs continued, "You can't really understand what is going on now unless you understand what came before."

Inventor Bio

An Iowa native, he received degrees in Physics and Mathematics from Grinnell College (Iowa) in 1949 and a Ph.D. in physical electronics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. He studied the first transistors, developed at Bell Laboratories, in a Grinnell College classroom.

Up until 1956, he did research at Philco Corporation. After leaving Philco he joined Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, to work with transistor technology.

As research director of Fairchild Semiconductor, he was behind initial development of the firm's silicon mesa and planar transistor product lines.

In 1957 Noyce co-founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation in Mountain View, California where he also served as research director until early 1959 when he became vice president and general manager.

In July 1968 he co-founded Intel Corp. another co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and a member of the Shockley laboratory staff. Noyce served as president of Intel until 1975 and chairman of the board from 1975 to 1979.

Noyce held 16 patents for semiconductor devices, methods, and structures.

After suffering a heart attack in his home, Noyce died on June 3, 1990.

Posted with the permission of the National Inventors Hall of Fame™

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office released its "Performance and Accountability Report" and one thing is obvious from the report is that the number of patent applications filed in the United States is going up. 

Record numbers of United States inventors and businesses find it more important than ever to protect their intellectual property by filing a patent application.

Here's a table from the report that shows the number of patent applications that were filed every year since 2007 has gone up.

So, over 500,000 new patent applications were filed in 2011. As much as the patent office wants to become more efficient the number of patents filed each year keeps the 6,664 patent examiners very busy.

With this great number of applications filed, the patent office discusses its goals and difficulties in trying to achieve a more efficient way to keep up with the huge numbers of patents filed every day in the United States.

In the report it is stated that the patent office has

"undertaken a series of initiatives to improve the speed and quality of patent processing in an ongoing effort to further strengthen the examination capacity of the USPTO."

For the first time in several years, the number of patent applications awaiting first action has fallen below 700,000. Even so doesn't a backlog of 671,409 seem like a pretty big number to you? Well it is, and even if the number of pending applications is much lower than it has been in the past, it still takes over two years for a new patent application to be looked at for the first time.

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Last year I interviewed professional patent searcher Martin E. Keller after he sent me his 2011 patent calendar. Each month on the calendar is accompanied by a drawing of a funny device described in a US patent.

This year I received a PDF version of the calendar which I share with you here. It is entitled "The 2012 Keller Patents Top Twelve Calendar." Martin indicates in his calendar he has

"conducted a few thousand patent searches in (his) career, starting in the “paper only” days - all the way up to the present EAST system. Everything from simple mechanical and electrical novelty searches to validity and infringement studies.

In the 2012 calendar Keller shares some fun patents with us. Here are a couple drawings I pulled off the patent calendar that you might find interesting.

One patent describes how to save the lives of airplane passengers in a disabled airplane by separating the passenger compartment from the fuselage of the airplane. It's kind of like the idea of the saucer section of the Starship Enterprise separating in an emergency.

I'm sure it would have been valuable in the 911 terrorist attacks. But who would decide when to deploy the parachute's? The captain or the stewardess.

And if there were hijackers aboard and have taken over the captain's cabin should the stewardesses be able to do it on their own? And I'm sure it would not be the best ride in the world. 

What about these wheels on this guy's feet. This invention was from the 1980s. I am an ice skater but I I wonder if I could wear these. Of course the prototype probably has a lot of kinks to work out of it.

How about this motorized traveling case scooter. It appears that it's probably so heavy it needs to be wheeled. But this was made in 1967. Before anybody used suitcases with wheels.

Too bad for him he didn't try to sell the  suitcase with wheels.

He might have been much more successful. You remember that in 1967 a suitcase didn't have wheels. Now you can't find a suitcase without wheels.

What about this gasoline powered blender PDF? There's a  Nissan commercial that leads a new ad campaign that asks "What if everything ran on gas?" This guy certainly wasn't thinking green. 

How about this bicycle fan from 1890. Seems like a good idea to me. Wouldn't you want this on a hot summer day? I wonder why some of these inventions never took off?

Download "The 2012 Keller Patents Top Twelve Calendar (PDF) and take a look at all the rest of the interesting patents that Martin found for our enjoyment. 

Thanks Martin for the calendar. Here's Martin's contact information:

Martin E. Keller
Professional Patent Searcher
1940 Duke St., Suite 200
Alexandria, VA 22314
T:703-624-0310
F:703-636-7700
e-mail: kellerpatents@gmail.com

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As a Buffalo patent attorney I often get asked questions from would-be authors about publishing and copyright. Dave Kocak tennis pro at the Miller Tennis Center wrote a book called "Tennis for the Rest of Us" and I asked him to share some of his thoughts about the process of writing and publishing a book.

Here is what Dave Kocak had to say:

I've been a tennis pro for about 30 years. I've taught in many venues, resorts, private clubs, country clubs and public clubs. I've worked with nationally ranked juniors, beginning juniors and adults at all levels.

While I've enjoyed teaching them all my favorite groups are beginning and lower level adults. Over 30 years I think I've learned a lot about how to teach adults and I have tried to narrow down the essentials to rapidly becoming the best tennis player you can be.

Believe me when I say "rapidly" I only mean as fast as you can. Unfortunately, there is usually nothing rapid about it.

Most books on tennis tend to be focused on young players with an eye to them becoming outstanding players competing at a high level.

The difference between that individual and a 40 year old woman who has never played a sport in her life is huge. I think those books set up someone like that to fail by creating unrealistic expectations or overwhelming them with information.

I had never seen a book designed for beginners covering all aspects of the game.

My book gives them the essentials of proper technique, simple advice on equipment, leagues, clubs, strategy, advice on selecting pros, getting your kids involved and some of the things to be avoided.

While I think I covered just about everything, I did it in 140 (my readers say humorous, easy to read pages) and not some manual that no one ever reads.

I knew exactly the book I wanted to write because I knew my audience so well. I thought I could self-publish without too much expense and I was right. Going through a conventional publisher seemed either overwhelming (no one likes rejection) or too time consuming.

I'd waited 30 years to write, I wanted to get it out there NOW! There are lots of sites that can help you self-publish, from cover preparation to editing to promoting.

10 Tips About the Process of Writing a Book:

1. You can do it. If I can, anyone can. I took all of the pictures in my book with a cheap digital camera and I've never owned a camera in my life. I've never written anything longer than two typed pages before either.
2. If you tell everyone you are writing a book, pretty soon you have to actually write it.
3. Don't be afraid to let other people read it (not the spouse). Your friends won't want to hurt your feelings but that doesn't mean they won't give you some honest criticism. Listen to their advice, but remember it is your book.
4. If you do not have pictures that are important to the book, Print-on-demand is the only way to go. At least in the beginning, and at least for your first book. You can get as many copies as you like for a few dollars apiece for your own sales and Amazon and Barnes & Noble will carry it online with a very attractive royalty structure.
5. I got 1,000 copies printed because it wasn't much more than getting 500. The difference is that I have an extra 10 boxes of books in my attic attesting to the fact that I don't know how to market. Keep that in mind.
6. My layout was done by a university student who worked on the school magazine and my proofreading was done by a college business writing teacher. Both were excellent but even college kids are kids.
7. If you are writing fiction a lot of this may not apply. I don't know anything about writing fiction.
8. Don't write it if you are not passionate about it. Even then, it's work. second book doesn't have the same internal imperative that the first one had (I HAD to write that one) and consequently is going a little slower.
9. To get a book on Amazon or anywhere else you need an ISBN number. The one or two main companies that handle them sell them in groups of 10 (everyone is likely to write 10 books?) for about $250. You can get individual ones for less than $100. check out the self-publishing sites. There are many that sell them now.
10. An excellent guide to getting self-published is the "The self publishing manual" by Dan Poynter.

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A synthetic cannabis called Cush produced by "Sky Hi Blends" in Arizona is now sold at some delis and convenience stores in Buffalo, New York.  Buffalo city officials want it off the shelves.

The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group own Orange Crush and think it is trademark infringement. They demand that the name and logo is removed from the labels of the Cannabis product.

"Needless to say, we had nothing to do with this product. We did not authorize the marketing and sale of it. We're angry that our trademark is being infringed and associated with a product like this and we're pursuing all legal alternatives to get it off the streets," said Chris Barnes, spokesman for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.

Ryan Burgess of  YNN News reported this story and as a buffalo attorney  that practices IP law I appear in this video clip to provide general information regarding trademark infringement.

I was quoted as saying "The question is whether it's going to confuse the public. Confusingly similar marks. It doesn't have to be the exact same thing.

It could be a phonetic equivalent, something close. And if it's close enough to confuse the public, then it's going to be an infringement of the trademark" 

I also found on line a product called Orange Krush. The product is advertised as a "a hybrid all natural bud smoke that grows wild in the peruvian jungles and several tropical islands."

I wonder what the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group thinks about the label on Orange Krush buds? Do you think the drops of orange liquid around the letters are "confusingly similar" to the Orange Crush trademark? Does changing the "C" to a "K" make a difference when infringement questions are raised?

An interesting side note to this story:

I performed a search on the United States Patent and Trademark Office search page I noticed that the trademarks registrations for Orange Crush are listed as DEAD. They have one pending application 85218189 for registration that is live. The registration 3721289 that is live is owned by Starbuzz Tobacco, Inc for tobacco products.

I am curious as to why they did not maintain their trademarks in Orange Crush. And I wonder how hard Sky Hi Blends is willing to push on fact that the registrations expired. If registrations expire there still are common law rights but the benefits of registration are lost.

Here are some of the benefits of owning a federal trademark registration on the Principal Register registration:

• Public notice of your claim of ownership of the mark;
• A legal presumption of your ownership of the mark and your exclusive right to use the mark nationwide on or in connection with the goods/services listed in the registration;
• The ability to bring an action concerning the mark in federal court;
• The use of the U.S. registration as a basis to obtain registration in foreign countries;
• The ability to record the U.S. registration with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Service to prevent importation of infringing foreign goods;
• The right to use the federal registration symbol ®; and
• Listing in the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online databases.

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Steve Jobs revolutionized our world through his inventions. There are very few inventors in the world that give us devices that change the way we live. There are not many households in the world that don't have some form of technology created by Apple.

My house is littered with almost every generation of iPod, the iPad I and II, Apple TV and a couple laptops made by Apple. I remember my first computer was a Mac in the early 1980s.

Steve Jobs co-founder of Apple passed away at the young age of 56. It makes me consider my mortality. You can have everything in the world but you can't control your time here.

We all live on the edge of life and death every minute but no one ever considers that death is going to take them away right now. So I try to remind myself to live my life now.

Inventors attempt to come up with ideas to change the world but there are very few people that actually do it.

Steve jobs and Apple revolutionized our world through the electronic devices he and his company invented.

The personal computer. In 1976 the Apple I was one of the first rudimentary computers made available for computer enthusiasts at the cost of $666.66.

Throughout the next 40 years the Apple personal computer evolved to a point where everyone could interact with the computer in our own language in a seamless iconic way.

The iPod forever changed the way we listen to music. It's iconic commercials of a young person listening to music with the earphone buds and long wire swinging to the music changed the music industry.

The iPad forever changed the way we interact with apps and the endless store of information on the Internet.

I would guess this is just the precursor of screens attached to walls and other devices that we swipe and tap with our fingers to manipulate the electronic images and music and remote control of virtually all electronic devices.

The iPhone the most popular smart phone in the world forever changed the way we communicate with each other. 

Steve Jobs has been compared to Edison, da Vinci and all the great inventors of all time and I agree he certainly deserves to go down in history as an iconic figure that changed the world forever.

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Wilson Greatbatch was an inventor from Buffalo who I met twice in my life. As a Buffalo, New York patent attorney I am a member of the Niagara Frontier Intellectual Property Law Association (NFIPLA) and he was an attendee at the annual dinner which honors the inventor of the year. He was the first person honored with the award and he attended many of the annual  NFIPLA Awards Dinners.

At the award dinner they also award the prize for the best idea from the local grammar schools. I remember a young girl won the award and Wilson Greatbatch let her wear the medal that he received from the Inventors Hall of Fame throughout the evening.

The second time I met him was at a laboratory he created in an old barn in Clarence, New York. I forget who invited me there, but he spoke about the many experiments he was conducting and how he was attempting to come up with new ways to make our world a better place. 

There was a formal presentation in which he discussed ways he envisioned harvesting helium-3 found on the moon and using it as the basis of generating nuclear-power through fusion to propel a rocket to Mars or use it as a clean source of energy on earth to replace fossil fuels.

Throughout his life and up until his death he wanted to create and come up with new ways of doing things to help humanity. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to meet such a great man and I was greatly saddened to hear of his death last week.

Wilson Greatbatch
Born Sep 6, 1919 died September 27, 2011

Medical Cardiac Pacemaker
Implantable Pacemaker
Patent Number 3,057,356 (PDF)

Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1986.

Wilson Greatbatch received more than 350 national and international patents including one for inventing the cardiac pacemaker, an innovation selected in 1983 by the National Society of Professional Engineers as one of the two major engineering contributions to society during the previous 50 years.

The pacemaker invention is an example of Louis Pasteur’s reflection that “chance favors the prepared mind.” While at the University at Buffalo, New York state, in 1956, Greatbatch accidentally fitted a device for recording heart rhythms with the wrong resistor which resulted in a device which created intermittent electrical impulses.

He was looking for a way to build a device small enough to produce electrical stimulation that could compensate for a failing heart and this was the beginning of the long history of discovering and ever improving the implantable pacemaker. The American Heart Association reports that more 500,000 pacemakers are implanted every year.

"I stared at the thing in disbelief and then realized that this was exactly what was needed to drive a heart," he wrote in his 2000 memoir "The Making of the Pacemaker."

Greatbatch has established a series of companies to manufacture or license his inventions, including Greatbatch Enterprises, which produces most of the world's pacemaker batteries.

"Nine things out of 10 won't work, The 10th will pay for the other nine."

                                                                                 Wilson Greatbatch

Invention Impact

His original pacemaker patent resulted in the first practicable implantable cardiac pacemaker, which has led to heart patient survival rates comparable to that of a healthy population of similar age. Implantable cardiac pacemaker have saved and improved countless lives.

Inventor Bio

Born in Buffalo, New York, Greatbatch received his preliminary education at public schools in West Seneca, New York. In 1936 he entered military service and served in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters during World War II. He was honorably discharged with the rating of aviation chief radioman in 1945.

He attended Cornell University and graduated with a B.E.E. in electrical engineering in 1950.

Greatbatch received a master's from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1957 after which he became manager of the electronics division of the Taber Instrument Corporation in Buffalo. Because Taber was unwilling to take on the risk of his pacemaker implant experiments, he began his life as an independent inventor and entrepreneur. He started with a mere $2000 and work independently out of his family home with his wife and children in Clarence, New York. Greatbatch died a wealthy man but at this time he needed to grow his own food to support his family.

He was awarded an honorary doctor's degrees from Houghton College in 1970 and State University of New York at Buffalo in 1984.

In 1979 was awarded the "Dean's Award for Engineering Achievement" at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Although trained as an electrical engineer, Greatbatch primarily studied interdisciplinary areas combining engineering with medical electronics, agricultural genetics, the electrochemistry of pacemaker batteries, and the electrochemical polarization of physiological electrodes.

In 1996, at age 76, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Lemelson-MIT Prize board.

Posted with the permission of the  National Inventors Hall of Fame™

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