OCTOBER 2020 Volume 36 Issue 10 DIGEST and AMBYR CHILDERS JEWELRY SPARKLES WITH PROUD HERITAGE Cardboard King HOW SY BERGER INVENTED THE ICONIC BASEBALL CARD Get Busy! USE TIME AT HOME TO BUILD YOUR PROTOTYPING SKILLS $5.95 FULTON, MO MO FULTON, FULTON, PERMIT 38 38 PERMIT PERMIT US POSTAGE PAID PAID POSTAGE POSTAGE US US PRSRT STANDARD STANDARD PRSRT PRSRT EDITOR’S NOTE Inventors DIGEST Oh, the Humanity! EDITOR-IN-CHIEF REID CREAGER USPTO Winners ART DIRECTOR End of year is typically awards season, and at CARRIE BOYD Inventors Digest it’s no different. But in this year of extraordinary health challenges throughout the CONTRIBUTORS world, some awards announcements salute innova- ELIZABETH BREEDLOVE LOUIS CARBONNEAU tion with particularly powerful and lasting impact. DON DEBELAK This year’s Patent for Humanity winners come ALYSON DUTCH to mind. The United States Patent and Trademark Office program JACK LANDER promotes life-changing innovations that address and sometimes solve JEREMY LOSAW long-standing development challenges. GENE QUINN Worried about our planet’s future? Here are a half-dozen reasons EDIE TOLCHIN to calm down: Global Vision 2020 GRAPHIC DESIGNER is one of three Maryland winners on this year’s JORGE ZEGARRA list. The Easton-based nonprofit, founded by retired U.S. Marine J. Kevin White, developed the USee Vision Kit that provides prescription INVENTORS DIGEST LLC eyeglasses cost effectively to hundreds of people. These include those PUBLISHER in parts of the world who normally do not have access to vision care. LOUIS FOREMAN Sisu Global in Baltimore, which designs and commercializes medi- cal devices with and for emerging markets, created the Hemafuse. It’s a WEBSITE ADMINISTRATOR ELIZABETH BREEDLOVE highly effective, mechanical alternative to transfusing donor blood. With a push and pull of a handle, the Hemafuse can salvage, filter and recy- FINANCIAL CONTROLLER cle blood from an internal bleeding in trauma without using electricity. DEBBIE MUENCH Sanaria, a Rockville-based biotech company, developed a whole SUBSCRIPTIONS parasite vaccine for malaria. Developing vaccines to fight malaria has LOURDES RODRIGUEZ long been the company’s mission; as the company said, “This award recognizes the importance of Sanaria’s intellectual property, cover- © 2020 Inventors Digest, LLC. All rights reserved. Inventors Digest, LLC is a North Carolina limited liability company and ing the innovations that have developed a unique family of vaccines is the publisher of Inventors Digest magazine. INVENTORS designed to prevent and eventually eliminate malaria.” DIGEST and INVENTORS’ DIGEST are trademarks of Inven- Flexcrevator is a pit latrine emptying device that enables fast, safe and tors Digest, LLC. Reproduction or distribution of any materi- als obtained in this publication without written permission is hygienic fecal sludge removal as opposed to manual emptying. A team from expressly prohibited. The views, claims and opinions expressed North Carolina State University made the first version of Flexcrevator in in article and advertisements herein are not necessarily those of 2011 with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Inventors Digest, LLC, its employees, agents or directors. This publication and any references to products or services are NEWgenerator was developed by University of South Florida engi- provided “as is” without any expressed or implied warranty neers. It utilizes state-of-the-art membrane bioreactor technology or term of any kind. While effort is made to ensure accuracy to create a machine capable of simultaneously recovering nutrients, in the content of the information presented herein, Inventors Digest, LLC is not responsible for any errors, misprints or mis- energy and water from wastewater. information. Any legal information contained herein is not to Nonspec of Lowell, Massachusetts, provides affordable and highly be construed as legal advice and is provided for entertainment adjustable prosthetic limb systems to amputees. The devices can be or educational purposes only. Interested parties and inventors seeking legal advice should consult a lawyer. taken off the shelf and adjusted in less than an hour. Not surprisingly, Patents for Humanity is a global competition. Want to Ad rates, subscriptions & editorial content: 520 Elliot Street know more? See the Patents for Humanity page on the USPTO website. Charlotte, NC 28202 [email protected] www.InventorsDigest.com —Reid [email protected] ([email protected]) OCTOBER 2020 INVENTORS DIGEST 3 American innovation needs to hit the gym Weakened patent protections have reduced the value of American inventions. To strengthen American innovation, support the STRONGER Patents Act—legislation designed to restore strong Constitutional patent rights, limit unfair patent challenges, and end the diversion of USPTO fees. Make your voice heard now at SaveTheInventor.com Brought to you by the Innovation Alliance ContentsOctober 2020 Volume 36 Issue 10 Features 26 Inspired Elegance Ambyr Childers Jewelry Sparkles With Heritage 30 Tough Lite Retired Navy SEALS’ High-Tech Equipment Inventor Spotlight 20 20 Solving Little Problems Woman’s Baby Products 24 Motivation is All Relative Brothers’ Kitchen Scrubber 24 Departments OCTOBER 2020 Volume 36 Issue 10 DIGEST 7 Everybody’s Talking and Conversation Pieces AMBYR CHILDERS JEWELRY SPARKLES WITH PROUD HERITAGE Cardboard King 8 Bright Ideas HOW SY BERGER INVENTED THE ICONIC BASEBALL CARD Innovation That Shines Get Busy! USE TIME AT HOME TO BUILD YOUR PROTOTYPING SKILLS 10 Time Tested Sy Berger, Cardboard King $5.95 FULTON, MO MO FULTON, FULTON, PERMIT 38 38 PERMIT PERMIT US POSTAGE PAID PAID POSTAGE POSTAGE US US PRSRT STANDARD STANDARD PRSRT PRSRT INV-vol 36-10-October-2020Final.indd 1 9/22/20 10:41 AM 14 Lander Zone ON THE COVER The Awe of Creativity TV and movie actress Ambyr Childers; 18 Social Hour photo by Rowan Daly Campaign Strategies 34 Prototyping Four for More 30 36 Launching Pad Press Release Basics 39 Inventing 101 Overcoming Others’ Failure 40 IP Market Bites at the Apple 43 Eye on Washington Iancu Talks COVID; No Halloween? Boo! 46 Inventiveness Focus on the Fun and Fascinating OCTOBER 2020 INVENTORS DIGEST 5 YOU HAVE THE IDEAS YOU HAVE THE IDEAS CORRESPONDENCE Letters and emails in reaction to new and older “Baby Steps” (September 2020): Inventors Digest stories you read in print or online InventorsSEPTEMBER 2020 Volume 36 Issue 09 DIGEST (responses may be edited for clarity and brevity): Thank you for featuring and analyz- Pain with ing the latest report on women and GAINS WOMEN’S PATENT RATES STRENGTHEN, WITH “10,000,000 (Patents) Served” (June 2018): patents. Let’s make sure women stay in A LONG WAY TO GO the inventing game and become even A book is to a publisher as an invention is to a _? more of a force! They have been mostly Why are inventions not treated as books, on the sidelines for far too long. where inventors are maybe provided advance Kudos to Inventors Digest and the $5.95 ON, MO MO ON, ON, LT LT FU FU IT 38 38 IT IT M M PER PER US POSTAGE PAID POSTAGE US payments and treated as writers are treated? patent office for fighting the good PAID POSTAGE US D D R R A A PRSRT STAND STAND PRSRT PRSRT What is the equivalent of a publisher of books, fight. —RENÁ MCBROOM INV-vol 36-09-September-2020Final.indd 1 8/21/20 11:01 AM to a _ of inventions? Are patents not an equivalent protection to the copyright of a book? —M. ROSS CONTACT US Letters: Online: Editor’s note: Based on the escalating pace of U.S. Inventors Digest Via inventorsdigest.com, comment below patents during the past century, the 11 millionth 520 Elliot Street the Leave a Reply notation at the bottom patent could be approved as early as the first half Charlotte, NC 28202 of stories. Or, send emails or other inquiries of 2021. to [email protected]. A GALAXY OF ‘STAR TREK’ LAWSUITS ment materials for his Tardigrades The first lawsuit chronicled was in 1974. game concept, published on An Ohio TV station tried to get the Federal YouTube and game development Communications Commission to waive its websites between May 2014 and Prime Time Access Rule and let the station September 2017. air “Star Trek” reruns from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The plaintiff noted that both on weekdays, in order to generate more the TV series and video game ad money than it would receive by run- In this space in the June featured tardigrades—hardy, microscopic ning local programming. The FCC said no. Inventors Digest, we dis- organisms that can survive in space. But “Star Trek” disputes abound even when cussed a lawsuit involving the appeals court noted that information they don’t result in court proceedings. “Star Trek” and Dr. Seuss about tardigrades is available publicly in After President Donald Trump unveiled Enterprises. Little did we know several scientific studies, and that facts the new insignia for the United States that the number of “Star Trek’-related and ideas are not protected by copyright. Space Force in January, the internet was in lawsuits is stacked higher than the Cat In In acknowledging the plethora of “Star an uproar that the design closely resembles The Hat’s striped chapeau—yet another Trek”-linked court cases since the TV the Starfleet logo from “Star Trek.” reminder of the importance of intellectual series debuted in September 1966, Judge It certainly does. But as we often remind property in the inventing world. Chin’s written statement slipped into a you in this magazine, the internet doesn’t One of the more recent court verdicts hackneyed attempt at humor: “Today, in always give us an accurate or complete came in late August. A panel of three the latest round of ‘Star Trek’-related liti- story unless you look a little harder.