4th Quarter Publicity = 1st Quarter Prosperity by: Todd Brabender, published: 9/26/2002. Category: Selling a Product As the year starts to wind down, many businesses and entrepreneurs are making plans and budgets for the year 2003. Those plans could include anything from setting up goals for new products to preparing marketing, sales and PR/publicity campaigns. When it comes to your publicity plan, WHEN you launch your campaign can be just as important to what and how you launch.

A Winning Collegiate Inventor: 5 Years Later by: Ray DePuy, published: 6/25/2001. Category: Success Stories As the coordinator of this Competition, I have tried to remain in touch with as many of the past winners as possible to see if they are still inventing, and where their careers have taken them. One of the winners, who turned his invention into a business, is Gregg Favalora.

Accreditation Board Drives Changes in Engineering Curricula by: Ray DePuy, published: 4/30/2001. Category: Curricula What industrial firms went through implementing the ISO 9000 Quality Standards is very similar to what engineering schools are now experiencing with ABET 2000. ABET is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (www.abet.org) and it accredits programs of study that lead to degrees in engineering. The organization does not accredit departments, colleges, or institutions.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Provisional Patent Application by: N. Paul Friederichs, published: 3/10/1999. Category: Patents & PPAs Provisional Patent Applications (PPAs) were devised to hold costs down, while an inventor explores the marketability of an invention. The PPA shifts costs, but does not necessarily reduce costs. The overall cost of obtaining an issued patent will be slightly higher. Provisional patent applications have been resoundingly praised by some and resoundingly despised by others.

Advantages and Disadvantages of an NDA by: N. Paul Friederichs, published: 3/10/1999. Category: Patents & PPAs Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) are versatile and necessary tools in the arsenal of anyone, inventor or corporation, who handles intellectual property. A NDAs is a contract whereby the signer agrees not to disclose certain information, except under terms as described in the contract.

American Ingenuity - How We Will Survive the Terror by: Andy Gibbs, published: 9/12/2001. Category: Tech Transfer This is a tough time for all of those who respect life, and especially so for those who experienced the tragedy of terrorism through the loss of loved ones. Although it’s no solace to those who lost loved ones in the tragedy, it once again sets into motion the great things upon which this country was built: American Ingenuity.

American Inventors' head lived the American Dream Part 2 by: Union News, published: 10/25/1999. Category: Scams and Fraud Editor's note: For more than 20 years, American Inventors Corp. of Westfield promised to make the dreams of amateur inventors come true. Now, 10 people associated with the company face federal charges of bilking more than 34,000 victims out of about $100 million.

An Inventor's Trade Secrets by: N. Paul Friederichs, published: 7/1/1999. Category: Trade Secrets "Trade secrets" is the legal term for confidential business information. An inventor's research and development needs to be protected at the very earliest of stages as a trade secret.

An Interview With Dean Kamen - Inspiring Tomorrow's Inventors Today by: Glen Kotapish, published: 7/22/2003. Category: How To You may have already heard of Dean Kamen’s Segway Human Transporter, the two-wheeled gyro-stabilized wonder designed to increase individual mobility. But have you heard of his earlier creation called FIRST? FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a robotics competition for high school students that is intended to transform education rather than transportation. Teams from different high schools compete against each other by creating robots designed to perform specific tasks. The competition combines high technology and teamwork to make high tech education exciting.

An Interview with Harold A. Meyer, III by: Andy Gibbs, published: 1/12/1998. Category: Expert Opinion In this interview, Mr. Meyer discusses his thoughts on pending legislation, inventor protection, and some of his ideas on future patent issues. A.G.: Hi Hal! We hear your name a lot now in the invention community. How did this happen? What is your involvement?

An Unlikely Inventor Dies by: Jill Ann Hurst, published: 2/1/2000. Category: News Ms. Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, the co-inventor of the frequency-hopping concept used in telecommunications, died on January 19 in Florida. The concept was conceived in 1940 as a way to keep Nazi ships from jamming allied torpedo signals. Ms. Kiesler worked with George Antheil on the invention. The U.S. patent (#2,292,387) for the "Secret Communication System" was granted on August 11, 1942. The technology, however, was kept secret by the U.S. government and, because it was deemed too cumbersome given the technology at the time, was not used. In 1957, engineers employed transistor electronics to implement the concept Kiesler and Antheil has patented. And in 1962, the U.S. government finally used the technology aboard ships sent out to blockade Cuba. The patent expired in 1959 and the inventors never collected any royalties from the invention. Perhaps you already know the "rest of the story".

Armchair Inventors and Armchair Quarterbacks NEVER Win! by: Andy Gibbs, published: 9/26/2001. Category: How To Inventing takes time, money, commitment, and follow-through. There are ways to shortcut each of these, of course, but there are no ways to eliminate any of them completely. The "armchair inventor, just like the Monday morning quarterback, think they're “Experts.” They have dozens of million-dollar ideas they absolutely KNOW will sell. They just need someone to “take their ideas and run with them.”

Artificial Intelligence, Today and Tomorrow by: Chris Moy, published: 4/23/2001. Category: Tech Review So what is Artificial Intelligence anyway? Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to get some significant exposure with the advent of Steven Spielberg’s new movie “AI” being released this summer. It is about a 13 year old boy who, in reality, is a superhuman computer. With this kind of exposure to the AI field it is useful to explain what AI is, where it is today and what are some of the dilemmas that lie ahead of Artificial Intelligence.

Assistance for Independent Inventors by: Ray DePuy, published: 10/24/2001. Category: IP Management Are you new to the concept of intellectual property? Are you trying to determine whether you need a patent, a trademark, or a copyright? Are you developing an invention at your own expense or for a small company? Are you considering hiring a patent attorney or agent? Are you attempting to obtain a patent or trademark without help from a registered patent attorney or agent? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has ways to assist you -- at no charge.

Asteroids as Beacons: Improving the Verification of Space Courses by: Radik Kagirov, published: 10/30/2002. Category: Engineering The Earth is sometimes likened to a big ship. If this is so then stony asteroids are the equivalent to dangerous reefs, and icy-stone comets to icebergs. Sometimes they change their drifting courses without warning, or emerge unexpectedly from the depths of space. Perhaps one of them will some day collide with an ocean liner or crash into the earth. Though the risk is low, such a collision could cause catastrophic results with far-reaching outcomes. But the play of waves reflected by rocks could help tackle the potential threat.

Before You Sign: Protecting Your Knowledge Value by: Stephen Arnold, published: 9/1/1998. Category: IP Management Universities are at the forefront of an important change in how organizations handle employees and rights to intellectual property. (For the purposes of this short overview, "intellectual property" will be narrowed to patentable inventions. In reality, the concept covers a far broader range of knowledge value products and services.)

Biographies of America's Greatest Inventors by: Tom Hollingsworth, published: 2/22/2000. Category: Success Stories Students of inventing will be delighted to know that biographies of America's greatest inventors are available on the web. The National Inventors Hall of Fame has a searchable site at www.invent.org.

Blinded By The Light by: Dennis Nelson, published: 8/11/2000. Category: Patent Searching As an inventor, we all have at one time or another had a "light-bulb" click on in our mind with a great idea for an invention; or as a patented inventor have had others who approach us with their idea(s).

Blinded By The Light, part 2 by: Dennis Nelson, published: 10/12/2000. Category: Assessment Now that you have had your "light-bulb" idea evaluated, and it is rated as a 50 to 75 watt bulb idea, go to the next step. Is there a market for the "widget"? Will your idea be "the light at the end of the tunnel"? Or will it be one of the millions of ideas that have little or no illumination?

Boomers Bust Old Beliefs: Inventing After 50 GEN-Xers: Step aside! by: Andy Gibbs, published: 11/15/1999. Category: Success Stories Could be that we remember Einstein as he was in his genius prime of life - gray hair and all. Oddly enough, we're seeing an entirely new generation of inventors hitting the market with new ideas and products: the Over 50 Gang. The "Absent Minded Professor" was clearly a satirical look at the proverbial tinkerer, concocter, inventor of Rube Goldberg contraptions of fantastic complexity, but which were fundamentally useless.