[Ip-health] Lemelson patent prizes v financing for sustainable inventions in developing world

[James Love]

*  By 2006, the foundation aims to devote half of its estimated annual
$13 million budget on financing what the foundation calls "sustainable
invention" in the developing world, a very different tack from rewarding
American ingenuity with lucrative cash prizes and lush ceremonies. In
addition, the foundation has already begun to make relatively small
investments in innovators and entrepreneurs in places like Costa Rica,
Indonesia and Kenya.

* One invention that the foundation has subsidized is a pump produced by
ApproTec, a nongovernmental agency in Kenya. The treadle pump, which is
operated with pedals - something like a Stairmaster - allows a farmer to
sharply increase the water he can use to irrigate crops. The Lemelson
grant went toward creating a drill to pierce the water table. The
foundation gave ApproTec $100,000.

* ApproTec's distribution of the treadle pump and other projects have
been credited with raising the gross domestic product of Kenya by $35
million, or 0.35 percent, a notion that was described as "astounding" by
Eric Lemelson, an environmental lawyer by training who operates an
organic vineyard in Oregon.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/26/technology/26patent.html

PATENTS
Expanding Reach of Patent Prizes
By TERESA RIORDAN

Published: April 26, 2004

At a reception last week at the National Academy of Sciences in
Washington, featuring a performance by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the
Lemelson-M.I.T. program awarded two of the biggest prizes open to inventors.

The first, with a $500,000 purse attached, went to Nick Holonyak Jr. for
inventing the first practical red light-emitting diode. The other, worth
$100,000, went to Edith Flanigen for her pioneering work with zeolite Y,
a molecular sieve used widely in petroleum refinement.

In its 10th anniversary, the Lemelson Foundation, which endowed the
invention prizes, is poised to take a new direction with its
philanthropy, a direction that seems surprising given that Jerome
Lemelson, whose millions made the foundation possible, was an ardent
supporter of the American inventor.

By 2006, the foundation aims to devote half of its estimated annual $13
million budget on financing what the foundation calls "sustainable
invention" in the developing world, a very different tack from rewarding
American ingenuity with lucrative cash prizes and lush ceremonies. In
addition, the foundation has already begun to make relatively small
investments in innovators and entrepreneurs in places like Costa Rica,
Indonesia and Kenya.

To a large extent, this shift reflects the interests of Jerome
Lemelson's sons, Rob and Eric, who along with their wives, and their
mother, Dorothy, oversee the foundation. Jerome Lemelson died in 1997.

Rob Lemelson, an anthropologist who was a Fulbright scholar in
Indonesia, has a special interest in that country. "Indonesia is the
largest Muslim country in the world," he said, adding that it was
important for Indonesians "to realize that Americans and American
foundations are interested in addressing key issues that are relevant to
their lives like water purification and poverty."

Dorothy Lemelson sees this new direction as an expansion of her
husband's original vision. "All his life, Jerry wanted to celebrate
American invention. He felt it was what made this country strong," Mrs.
Lemelson said. "Now it's time to turn to the rest of the world and see
what we can do for them."

Ashok Gadgil, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
serves as an adviser to the foundation. "We are talking about the bottom
one-third of humanity on the planet, who earn less than $2 a day," he
said. "A video cellphone is not going to help them. They lack access to
safe water and suffer the effects of smoke inhalation from dirty biomass
cook stoves. Forget about a G.P.S.-navigated automobile; these are
people who don't even have a bicycle."

The Lemelson brothers started thinking about sustainable innovation
about three years ago. They hired an executive director to begin
developing a program two years ago, and they expect the program to be in
full gear by 2006.

One invention that the foundation has subsidized is a pump produced by
ApproTec, a nongovernmental agency in Kenya. The treadle pump, which is
operated with pedals - something like a Stairmaster - allows a farmer to
sharply increase the water he can use to irrigate crops. The Lemelson
grant went toward creating a drill to pierce the water table. The
foundation gave ApproTec $100,000.

ApproTec's distribution of the treadle pump and other projects have been
credited with raising the gross domestic product of Kenya by $35
million, or 0.35 percent, a notion that was described as "astounding" by
Eric Lemelson, an environmental lawyer by training who operates an
organic vineyard in Oregon.

"Raising living standards to levels where people can think about things
beyond keeping themselves and their children alive from day to day is a
critical part of how to solve the sustainable development puzzle," Mr.
Lemelson said.

Calestous Juma, professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of
Government suggested that the foundation needed to focus on rewarding
true innovations rather than financing programs already in existence.
The ApproTec pump, for example, was already part of a successful program
when the Lemelson Foundation gave it a $100,000 grant last year.

"That is a big distinction," Professor Juma said. "It's not that clear
what they are supporting so far." Offering prizes in the developing
world similar to the Lemelson-M.I.T. award, he said, would be "a very
significant incentive."

"If they go the route of simply funding projects, they are competing
with much bigger foundations like the Rockefeller, MacArthur, and Ford
foundations," he said. "I think the strength of Lemelson would be to
continue their tradition of rewarding innovators. No one else is doing
this and if they do so, they will serve as an inspiration for other
foundations to do similar things."

The foundation is no longer stressing patents over the act of invention
since many developing countries have no patent system at all or a poorly
enforced one. The ideas the foundation finances "don't have to be
patentable," Eric Lemelson said. "They just have to improve lives on a
basic level." But the foundation plans to fund efforts to strengthen
intellectual property institutions.

During his lifetime, Jerome Lemelson received more $1 billion in
royalties for licenses to his bar-code and machine vision patents, and
gave away more than $100 million. While he was revered by independent
inventors as the epitome of an American success story, Jerome Lemelson
was criticized by corporate lawyers who characterized him as more of a
shrewd manipulator of the patent system than as an inspired inventor.

The recipient of 562 patents before his death at the age of 74 in 1997,
Mr. Lemelson was second only to Thomas Edison, who was awarded 1,093
patents. Mr. Lemelson has continued to receive patents posthumously, his
590th last month.

By most accounts, Jerome Lemelson's sons have been proven to be
thoughtful stewards of their father's many millions. Indeed, they say
they encouraged their father to pursue philanthropy.

"He was so busy inventing 24 hours a day," Rob Lemelson said. "We said,
'you have great resources, you have great responsibility.' This couldn't
have been done without my father's achievement. Eric and I just gave him
a little push."

Would he have agreed with the new direction the foundation is taking?
"Although the impetus for our international program lies primarily with
my brother and me," Eric Lemelson said, "I think Jerry would be fully
supportive were he alive today."

Patents may be viewed on the Web at www.uspto.gov or may be ordered
through the mail, by patent number, for $3 from the Patent and Trademark
Office, Washington, D.C. 20231.