In December 1943, Edwin Land took his family on vacation. Leaving his home in Cambridge, Mass., the inventor took his wife and 3-year-old daughter to New Mexico for a few days.
While walking through the snow, Land had an idea.
A New York Times obituary from 1991 quotes him as saying, "I recall a sunny day in Santa Fe when my little daughter asked why she could not see at once the picture I had just taken of her. As I walked around the charming town, I undertook the task of solving the puzzle she had set me."
Soon after, Land invented the Polaroid camera.
Massive success followed. Land, a Harvard University dropout and mostly self-taught physicist, went on to receive 533 patents for his inventions and became phenomenally wealthy.
In February of this year, the Polaroid Corporation announced it was ceasing production of its most famous product, relegating the instant camera to the domain of hobbyists, collectors and eBay merchants.
The instant camera's limelight has faded like a Polaroid photo left in the sun for too long, but Land's camera inspired countless amateurs and pros, so much so that instant camera enthusiasts set up a save-the-Polaroid Web site.
Six decades since Land's eureka moment, Santa Fe is still inspiring inventors.
Ever heard of Jerome Romero's FunTopz bottle openers or Michael Ogden's wastewater treatment system or Ed Sceery's wounded-animal whistle? You may soon. These Santa Fe inventors' recent creations represent a small portion of the 832 patents awarded to New Mexico inventors (who are predominantly male) over the last couple of years. All these inventors have dreams of success—even if their contraptions never achieve Land's level of notoriety.
Patents are the bane or blessing of innovation, depending on whom you ask. Ben Mattes, creator of filters used in saltwater-powered clean energy plants, says he decided against filing for a patent because "they allow you to sue other people for infringement." His invention, which involves water filtration for power plants, remains a trade secret, meaning anyone who figures out his technology is able to use it. (Mattes says he's confident no one will ever figure out the workings of his invention.)
According to federal law, a patent is good for 20 years, after which anyone can make knockoffs of an inventor's product. Visit the US Patent Office's Web site and you will see drawings and explanations of thousands of patented inventions. Nationally, New Mexico ranks near the bottom of the patent hierarchy, both on a per capita basis and in terms of sheer numbers.
New Mexico, according to patent attorney Sam Freund, has not done as much to attract businesses that focus on invention and intellectual property as other states.
Santa Fe inventors are not to be deterred, though. Talk to one for long enough and you may well start believing in their gadgets, too. At the very least, you'll likely come away wondering: Why didn't I think of that?
Water Treatment System
Inventor: Michael Ogden
Day job: President, Natural Systems, Inc.
His all-time favorite invention: The Archimedes Principle. Science textbook The Basics of Physics describes the principle thusly: “When an object, such as a rock, is dropped in a container of water, the water level increases…” (Recall the story of Archimedes running through the streets of Syracuse, shouting, “Eureka!”?)
“It was such an elegant thing that it works on any planet,” Ogden says.
How his invention could affect our lives: It could eliminate the need for septic tanks.
What the actual patent says : “Waste treatment systems and methods of using them to treat septage, domestic sludge or both are enclosed.”
Meet the inventor: “You know what septage is?” Michael Ogden asks.
Poo?
“Not quite the same,” he replies, leaning over his desk. “It’s been digested by microorganisms. It actually looks like peat if you dry it, and there’s a lot of it…So what do you do with this stuff? It’s stinky and smelly. Another way to look at it is as a resource. It’s got water, nitrogen, phosphorous, carbon—what it takes to grow plants.”
Ogden’s company, Natural Systems, Inc., specializes in earth-friendly approaches to treating wastewater and storm water. In 1990, Ogden devised a natural wastewater treatment system that holds the nasty stuff in retention ponds and eventually cycles it through reed beds, hyacinth ponds, wetlands and a meadow. In each step, the septage is broken down and eventually becomes more palatable to the ecosystem.
He came up with the idea while working on a wastewater project with his mentor, fellow natural resources planner John Todd. “I recognized John’s approach was too labor intensive,” Ogden says.
Ogden, a 64-year-old architect born in New York City, says he is currently working with local governments in Louisiana to install his patented natural wastewater treatment plants.
He sees his invention as a common-sense alternative to conventional wastewater plants, which are machinery-heavy and expensive to maintain.
“They’re like Ferraris,” Ogden says. “They’re good for eight miles to the gallon and it takes guys with master’s degrees to make them run. So there’s a consequence for that.”
By contrast, Ogden says, “I got plastic liners, a concrete slab and pumps that have 20-year life cycles on them. That’s all.”
Rear Suspension of a Motorcycle
Inventor: James Parker
Day job: Self-employed
His all-time favorite invention: The airplane.
How his invention could affect our lives: It improves motorcycles’ performance and makes them look really awesome.
What the actual patent says: “A rear single-sided swingarm suspension for a motorcycle includes a single-sided swingarm that has an axle bearing assembly pivotably connected to the rearward end thereof for swinging motion in a plane parallel to the plane of travel of the swingarm.” (Got that?)
Meet the inventor: You don’t have to know much about motorcycles to see how James Parker’s invention differs from traditional designs. Instead of having a telescopic fork attached to the front wheel, Parker devised a single bionic-looking arm that stretches from the motorcycle’s steering column to the center of the wheel.
“This system is three times as strong as a fork but with the same weight,” Parker says, in an interview in the living room of his South Capitol home.
Unlike other Santa Fe inventors, Parker came to inventing circuitously: He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in industrial design and later owned a construction company in town. He began racing in the 1970s and then started designing motorcycles.
After he left the construction industry in ’96, Parker devoted himself to inventing full time and has since been featured in numerous magazine articles, in addition to penning a column for Motorcyclist Magazine.
He’s amazed he has such a low profile in Santa Fe.
“I easily have more magazine covers than any independent motorcyclist inventor in the world,” Parker says, “and it’s funny, because Santa Fe doesn’t know about me at all. I feel a little bit touchy about that.”
More attention is given to television shows like Orange County Chopper, where mechanics pimp out bikes in a way Parker says “is irresponsible.”
“Those shows really, really, really disgust me,” he says. “It’d be fine if these guys said, ‘We’re doing sculpture and this really shouldn’t be ridden because we don’t do any testing of it.’ That’s what bothers me.”
Baseball Cap Shaped Beverage Container Opener and Bottle Resealer
Inventor: Jerome Romero
Day job: Auto mechanic
His all-time favorite invention: One of his own. “About 17 years ago I invented a scoot-and-go cycle,” Romero says. “I put a motor on a scooter. I tried getting it trademarked but money was hard then and there are 11 [people] in my family.”
How his invention could affect our lives: It opens bottles and keeps beverages fresh.
What the actual patent says: “The ornamental design for a baseball cap shaped beverage container opener and bottle resealer.”
Meet the inventor: Jerome Romero came up with the idea for a baseball cap-shaped bottle opener about 10 years ago. “We were always using belt buckles to open beers,” Romero recalls. “I wanted something cool that you could keep in your car and have for a long time.”
That idea set Romero on an odyssey that has since cost him thousands of dollars in patent attorney fees, manufacturing costs in China and marketing. Romero, who commutes daily to Taos to work on cars, is hopeful his big break is around the corner.
“I’m looking for the big companies,” he says. Romero’s bottle openers, dubbed FunTopz, are miniature plastic hats and helmets that fit over bottle tops. FunTopz serve dual functions: They help keep bottled beverages fresh and they crack open cold ones.
Romero holds patents on little plastic cowboy hats, baseball caps, and football and racecar helmet models. He currently has a prototype for a hockey goalie helmet as well.
Romero is banking on sports teams to buy FunTopz, which can be decorated with sports team logos. If a team licensed the product from Romero, that would result in a hefty payday for the local inventor.
Currently, he has team stickers already affixed to FunTopz, despite the fact that they constitute trademark infringement; that’s part of Romero’s business strategy.
“For [sports teams] to come after us and say, ‘you’re infringing,’ that’d be a good thing because I’ll say, ‘that’s great—I’ll sell it to you,’” Romero says. “I’m trying to push the button a little bit.”
Asked if friends and family questioned Romero’s sanity when he first conceived of FunTopz, the mechanic/inventor says, “Well, people tried to discourage me, but when I made my first prototype, everyone wanted it.”
Sound Producing Device
Inventor: Ed Sceery
Day job: President, Sceery Outdoors
His all-time favorite invention: The steam engine.
How his invention could affect our lives: It can be used as a toy or to attract coyotes.
What the actual patent says: “The disclosed novel device can produce a wide variety of musical and desirable sounds of considerable volume and has applications to hand-held musical instruments, toys, novelty items and wildlife attraction devices.”
Meet the inventor: There are three main wildlife call companies in the world. One of them is Sceery Outdoors, housed in the same building as a UPS shipping station in south Santa Fe.
Past the nondescript entrance, where a door sign reads, simply, “Ed,” there is a small warehouse full of game calls. Moose calls, elk calls, deer calls, birdcalls and something called, “Hot cow in heat.”
Ed Sceery is the president of his namesake company.
“I am an entrepreneur,” he says, “a true entrepreneur. It doesn’t make any difference to me what a product is. I always look at it with the idea of making it better.”
That attitude has helped make Sceery a big name in the obscure industry of wild game calls. These whistles, of which there are scores, attract critters with one of three main types of sounds: mating, socializing or food.
Patent number 7,384,323 falls into the latter category. Dubbed a “double barrel high pitch predator call,” the sound-producing device mimics a wounded animal such as a rabbit. Hunters use this device to attract coyotes.
Sceery, 60, has studied the art of game-call making for 30 years. He began by recording sounds while hunting and then going home to invent something that sounded like the animals he heard in the wild.
Coming up with the idea, Sceery says, “is just 1 percent. People call me an inventor, but there’s so much that goes into it after you come up with these things. You have to be willing to follow through and see it to completion.”
Animal Skin and Eye Moisture and Heat Simulator
Inventor: Robert Hockaday
Day job: President, Energy Related Devices
His all-time favorite invention: Hockaday points out one of his own inventions called the “microconcentrator photovoltaic cell.”
How his invention could affect our lives: It can help researchers determine how foggy goggles will become under different circumstances.
What the actual patent says: “A new simulator of the human head and animal bodies mimics moisture transpiration from eyes and skin and heat emission. The present invention used to demonstrate and quantify anti-fogging performance of goggles and apparel.”
Meet the inventor: Talkative, eccentric and lab-coated, Robert Hockaday perfectly fits the stereotype of the mad Los Alamos scientist. He has numerous experiments sitting around his lab—including one human head simulator.
To be honest, SFR was expecting to find a sweating mannequin head in the Los Alamos lab, perhaps in a test tube-filled room where Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical” blares over loudspeakers, for dramatic effect.
No such luck. Instead, just a tall, clear beaker, standing maybe three feet high, with heated water inside and a porous piece of black fabric covering what appear to be eyeholes.
Hockaday cranks up the heat on the “head” to body temperature, and it begins to perspire.
The invention was the result of another one. He wanted to invent goggles that could withstand the rigors of war, so he could sell them to the Department of Defense. He did so—soldiers are currently wearing Hockaday’s goggles—but while working on that project, he realized he needed to test his eyewear in real-life circumstances. He began running around the office trying to work up a sweat while wearing the goggles. But that was not very scientific. “You need a controlled environment,” Hockaday says. That’s when he came up with the heat simulator, which can get as hot as 122 degrees Fahrenheit and as cold as -4.
“We jokingly call it ‘Jughead,’” Hockaday says. “We made it originally from a pretzel barrel, then cut out an eye area and put in a very thin water-permeable membrane.”
He says everyone who sees Jughead loves it—his kids especially.
Suspension Bicycle Seat
Inventor: Ray Mendez
Day job: President, Mortgage Options Inc.
His all-time favorite invention: The airbag. And the hula hoop. (Post-interview, Mendez called SFR back to express his deep disregard for the cell phone. “That’s the worst invention ever,” he says. “And I have one.”)
How his invention could affect our lives: It could make bike riding easier. And, according to Mendez, it may prevent prostate cancer.
What the actual patent says: “The invention comprises a suspension frame system, an adjustable nose pad, an arcuate seat pad with a center opening, a movable nose pad, and a gap between the nose pad and the seat pad.”
Meet the inventor: Ray Mendez, a mortgagor with 40 years’ experience, came up with his idea for a specialized bike seat while riding one day with his 6-year-old grandson.
“I could only last about 30 minutes on those seats,” Mendez says. “You know, you see articles about prostate problems—some attribute it to all that force in the area. I can’t stand it.”
So Mendez went to his workshop and made a prototype of a seat that omits the nose portion—the extended part of the seat—but when he realized the nose helps riders maintain their balance when turning, he developed a new idea. He refashioned the seat as two different parts (the nose and the wider, butt-sitting portion), so that the nose would be adjustable for different riders.
“I went to my shoe repair guy and he wrapped it in leather. It worked out real nice,” Mendez says.
After Mendez’ patent was approved, he began receiving phone calls from get-rich-quick schemers who wanted to buy his product for cheap. “The hawks and crows started contacting me,” the Fort Sumner native says.
Mendez never sold or promoted his bike seat, despite spending upwards of $15,000 on patent attorney fees. “I contacted Schwinn, but they didn’t have any interest,” Mendez says. He says that marketing the seat himself would cost at least $70,000.
It is not the first time Mendez has received nothing for his ideas. When he was 10 years old, he sent drawings of a never-before-seen bunk bed to Popular Mechanics as part of a contest for young inventors and won. “I never got paid for that one, either,” he says.
Hands Free Faucet Control
Inventor: Harmon Houghton
Day job: Owner, Clear Light Books
His all-time favorite invention : The ball bearing. “Every other invention owes its existence to it,” Houghton says.
How his invention could affect our lives: It reduces household water consumption, lowering utility bills and helping out the planet.
What the actual patent says: “Hands free system providing user control and regulation of water flow and temperature mix using ‘foot actuated’ devices.”
Meet the inventor: Maybe you’ve seen one of these gadgets in the hospital before: a seemingly normal sink operated by foot pedal. These are used in medical facilities all over the country to prevent the spread of germs.
Sanitation is just an added benefit, inventor Harmon Houghton says. The foot-powered gadget’s real use is water conservation. Houghton’s Ecofaucet, as it is known, can reduce household H2O consumption up to 90 percent.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of all that water going down the sink unused,” Houghton says. “That spurred me to think of how to control water without having to use my hands.”
Houghton, who runs a Southwest-centric publishing company in Santa Fe, estimates that 70 percent of water, used in the sink for such mundane activities as washing dishes or hands, goes down the drain unused.
The Ecofaucet helps reduce water waste because consumers can turn off the tap, say, between dishes or while lathering up their hands, using their foot. In this respect, the Ecofaucet is the same as other systems, but Houghton is quick to point out that his invention allows users to adjust the temperature as well. Move the pedal to the left to get hot water; move it to the right to get cold.
“We kind of advanced the state of the art in faucet control and design,” Houghton says.
Broadband External Cavity Diode Laser
Inventor: Daniel Kane
Day job: Optical physicist, Southwest Sciences, Inc.; President, Mesa Photonics
Favorite all-time invention: The transistor.
How his invention could affect our lives: It provides better imaging of arteries than ultrasound, so it could help identify problem spots that cause heart attacks and strokes
What the actual patent says: “An external cavity laser and a method of generating laser light via an external cavity laser…”
Meet the inventor: In an anonymous, generic office building on Pacheco Street, Dan Kane plays with lasers. Last July, he (along with Jeffrey S Pilgrim) received a patent for a device that can create 3-D images of organisms’ innards, sending beams through the skin that bounce off arteries and create a sharp image—not unlike a depth finder used in fishing boats.
Don’t expect to be hooked up to Kane’s product next time you get a physical, though. The technology, he says, is not that far along yet.
“We’d like to license this,” he says, standing in the cavernous lab at Southwest Sciences, Inc., where he works part time. “[But] it’s still a little too developey for investors.”
Money woes have slowed Kane’s project to a standstill and he says that is partly the fault of the federal government.
“In 2000,” he says, “the quality of research coming out of the United States was better than everyone. At this, point, Europe is ahead. If we don’t start having more investment in research, we’ll be a second-class nation.”
Algae Energy Converter
Inventor: Alfons Viszolay
Day job: President, VM Technology
His all-time favorite invention: Alternating current—the type of energy produced in residences and businesses (as opposed to direct current, which is produced by batteries). Viszolay also loves the microchip.
How his invention could affect our lives: It could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and it could provide fuel for Eritrean villagers
There is no patent.
Meet the inventor: EcoVersity, the nonprofit educational center on Agua Fria Street, has been looking more like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab lately.
The reason is that Alfons Viszolay, a 65-year-old Hungarian chemist, installed his algae energy contraption on EcoVersity’s campus.
The project works like this: Algae are placed in a container and fed carbon dioxide—an essential nutrient that determines how fast algae grow. The more CO2 given to algae, the quicker they develop. Algae also need sun—lots of it—so Viszolay keeps the algae in long, translucent water-filled polypropylene tubes that act as a sort of greenhouse. Eventually, the algae are collected, squeezed and the oils they contain are separated.
From one acre of algae tubes, Viszolay estimates he gets 5,000 gallons of biodiesel per year. The algae machine at EcoVersity creates enough energy to run it, he says, and for Ecoversity to receive money back from Public Service Company of New Mexico.
Viszolay moved to Harlem in the 1960s during the Cold War and began experimenting with alternative power sources. His first venture into alternative energy was in 1979, when Bill Lear (of Learjet fame) asked Viszolay to help develop a hydrogen-fueled bus system.
Viszolay knew that public consciousness was against him. “This was in the muscle car era,” he says. “Gas was 60 cents a gallon—diesel was 25 cents. I was laughed at.”
As far as expanding beyond EcoVersity, Viszolay says he has been in touch with nonprofit human rights group CHF International to possibly build an algae field in Eritrea, where villagers currently have to walk miles for firewood. He also is in talks with the Navajo Nation and is planning to build an algae field at Santa Fe Brewing Company this fall as well.
Cheap, renewable energy is a goal of Viszolay’s, but it’s not the only one. He believes so strongly in getting young people involved that, when he created the algae technology company LGI Inc., he made his 9- and 10-year-old kids the CEO and president, respectively.
“That’s the future of all of this, you know. I’m investing in this for the kids,” Viszolay says.
Energy-Producing Water Filtration System
Inventor: Ben Mattes
Day job: Founder and CEO, Santa Fe Science and Technology, Inc.
His all-time favorite invention: The personal computer.
How his invention could affect our lives: “It is entirely renewable energy,” Mattes says.
There is no patent: “We need more of this technology in this world,” Mattes says of his decision not to patent his invention. “I have an open-hands policy on this. I share it with everybody. It’s such a good thing that I think that everyone realizes it can help people…that’s why I do this. I don’t think it should belong to one person. I think it would be wonderful if everyone else could do this.
Meet the inventor: Around 2004, Ben Mattes knew something had to change. For years, his company had been developing cutting-edge, experimental products for military use, but when funding from the federal government began drying up soon after the Iraq war began, Mattes switched his game plan.
Mattes’ company, Santa Fe Science and Technology, Inc., began working on a product to harness the power of freshwater as it mixes with saltwater, which creates pressure and can be used to power turbines.
In Mattes’ office on Richards Lane, he shows a video to illustrate. Imagine a water pitcher with a flat porous sheet set vertically in the middle. Pour fresh water in one side of the pitcher, saltwater in the other. What will happen is the fresh water will pass through the sheet, mixing with the saltwater and increasing the amount of salt water. When it rises and overflows, the now-diluted saltwater creates a waterfall effect that can be used like water in a hydroelectric dam.
Mattes’ company is developing a filter that goes between the freshwater and saltwater, using fibers that are packed more densely than the membranes currently being used and which can push more water through than the current technology.
Mattes’ filtration system is slated for installation in a Norwegian power plant in the next 12 to 18 months. The energy produced has the potential to account for 10 percent of the country’s energy consumption.
“Let’s put it this way,” Mattes says, “if you can save 10 percent of energy costs, it would improve people’s lives by being a green technology that wouldn’t pollute.” SFR
