I have always thought that U.S. Patents are part of what makes America, America. Anyone who has an idea can protect it with the full enforcement power of the U.S. government. Without patent protection, most successful inventions would be ripped off in a hot minute. Today there are patented things everywhere we look. But most people never go through the process of actually, officially getting one.
A few years back, Dr. George Carlo and I were awarded a Utility Patent-which protects the technical or structural aspects of your invention. It's actually an EMF protection device.
If you're the type who loves the nitty gritty details, you can check out U.S. Patent #8,996,064
It's super technical, but it also shows what you actually have to produce in order to get a patent.
So what is the process like?
It is fascinating. And tedious. And somewhat ridiculous. And expensive. However, as you know, you can't keep a good idea down. Dr. Carlo and I decided that in order to help people reduce their exposure to EMFs, we needed to create something that was easy to carry, easy to use and kept people from putting their heads up next to their phones every time they got a call. .Like most things, the idea just developed out of a random phone call, we got excited about it and decided to get going on it immediately. Then, almost three years later, we were the proud owners of a patent, with the certificate to prove it.
• What was The Idea?
IMAGINE: A smartphone case with headphones integrated right into it. SO smart, right? Well many things (I've heard) are easier said than done--and this was definitely one of them. I can't even remember how many actual prototypes we built, but I have a case of them in storage.
• First order of business was to brainstorm how to get the headphones back into the case. From the initial design, we started with a cool crank to return the head phones to nestle in the case. Seemed old school and eco friendly. And at that time, the end of the headphones plugged into the headphone jack, which was a thing at that moment in ancient history. We further imagined a little lever that locked the jack in place. That was clunky.
•Eventually we realized that we were going to have to make a concession. The best way to make the case work easily for multiple generations of smartphones, was to use a spring to retract the headphones and then to connect them to the phone itself via bluetooth. I know what you're thinking...
• Bluetooth? EMFs? Who do you think you are? Tech Wellness? Designing anything is just a collection of choices you make and after much consideration, having a wireless connection to connect to the case attached to the phone was the only thing that made sense. So the bluetooth wouldn't stay on all the time, we designed it to only activate when the headphones were pulled all the way out--which was about 36" or so. And then you could put the phone on the table or the seat next to and maintain that "distance is your friend" that I love.
• Audio quality. Next we actually hired an audio engineer from the largest in-ear monitor company in America to design us a really fabulous speaker that would just blow everything else out of the water. The prototype sound like nothing I'd ever heard. So with that major victory, we moved toward setting up to build it.
• Could we make it in America? At this time, no we could not. Hopefully that has changed by now. We searched for months for a company that could do the injected plastic, construct the headphones and then put the whole package together. We tried everything. We even considered medical equipment manufacturers. But here's what we found out:
• Virtually all things like phone cases and most all electronics are made far, far away, usually in China. If we had found a company in the US that could at least handle the case part, there was virtually NO ONE in America who could make the "tool." The tool is not a screwdriver. It is the precision mold that pops out the cases once its injected with molten plastic. We were told the estimated cost for this device's tool wouldl be about $150,000-200,000. That was astounding. And because it was literally impossible to to do it in the USA, we actually considered buying the tool in China and having an American company put it together but couldn't find any takers here to do that.
• Another concession: We finally realized this was going to have to be built in China. Or it actually wasn't going to get built. So we use our existing contacts and started getting estimates from a few companies, working with a German company with offices in China for the final design.
• Then we made a BOM. Not a b-o-m-b. A Bill of Materials. The exhaustive list of all the tiny parts and details needed to build the case and package it. As the company in China was working on this, we realized that they had no idea how to build a spring loaded retractor. the thing that would pull the headphones back into the case when you weren't using them. This seemed odd, but they kept failing miserably. And they had no idea where to find someone who could do it. Again, we hit the doldrums. What now? We realized that these electronic guys had no idea had to make something mechanical like a spring retractor. Moving parts? No Thank You-we work with chips and wiring only.
• So, we had to find a spring guy. We found the best in the business, not in China, but in Corona, California. He was an older Hispanic gentleman, who had spent his entire career engineering springs. It's a very complicated art actually. He had enginered teeny tiny springs and humongous ones. How much pull do you need? How long is the wire and how heavy is it? Do you want it to SNAP shut or gently pull back into the case? All good questions that we had to figure out. Which took a couple of months and about 5 spring prototypes.
• Back in China, they were ready but they told us they needed us to build the the spring assembly in the U.S. and ship it to them to put in the case! Welcome to the global supply chain!
So all in all, this had become a very big, complicated, risky bet. But that has never stopped us before-so onward.
• We were getting close to pulling the trigger, but we ran into a very harsh reality. The average time between launches of a new smartphone, in this case we were designing only for the iPhone initially, was less than a year. To get the new case to market, we needed to know if there were going to be physical changes to the phone in advance or else by the time it came out, it would be time to start selling the next model. And major changes were happening with every single model! Moving the headphone jacks, changing the buttons, making them bigger, round edges, flat edges, different cameras. That whole making it better thing.
• Sadly when the reality of this sunk in, we realized this was not a game for a couple of kids from Orange County. This was a game where only the biggest and the fastest need apply. Companies that can turn prototypes over in mear hours and are ready to sell in weeks, not months. The product life cycle and the continuous changes that came with every new model were just too much for us to overcome.
• So we got a patent. Mostly because we hadn't wanted to share even the basic idea with potential vendors until we at least had a patent pending. A Utility Patent, which is the best kind, on a product, which even today, is STILL a great idea. And it was mostly a fun, creative experience. So we carefully packed up our prototypes, and zipped up all the autocad files. And they are quietly waiting until the moment when AI can make this happen for us! Hello Claude Code. Nice to meet you!
