1 00:00:02,100 --> 00:00:06,960 My name is Wynn Coggins I am the USPTO's Deputy Chief Administrative officer and 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:11,820 it is now my great pleasure to introduce a very important person to us here at 3 00:00:11,820 --> 00:00:16,230 the USPTO He is a remarkable leader he is a person 4 00:00:16,230 --> 00:00:20,699 that within six short months of taking the helm here with us has made and 5 00:00:20,699 --> 00:00:25,640 continues to make a tremendous impact on the intellectual property community 6 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:31,650 please join me in giving me in giving a warm USPTO welcome to the Undersecretary 7 00:00:31,650 --> 00:00:35,370 of Commerce intellectual property and director of the United States Patent and 8 00:00:35,370 --> 00:00:47,100 Trademark Office Andre Iancu ok great thank you when and 9 00:00:47,100 --> 00:00:51,480 good afternoon everybody and for those of you who are online I'm not sure that 10 00:00:51,480 --> 00:00:55,649 you are online yet welcome to you as well or whenever you get to see this 11 00:00:55,649 --> 00:01:05,460 welcome it's it's great to kick off our USPTO speaker series I'd like to welcome 12 00:01:05,460 --> 00:01:12,509 those here as well as the employees remotely and in regional offices earlier 13 00:01:12,509 --> 00:01:18,329 this year at my swearing-in ceremony I noted that throughout the course of my 14 00:01:18,329 --> 00:01:24,930 career as an engineer and then as an IP lawyer I have seen firsthand the life 15 00:01:24,930 --> 00:01:31,740 changing history altering impact of innovation and I also mentioned the 16 00:01:31,740 --> 00:01:37,049 importance of recognizing and indeed celebrating the excitement of invention 17 00:01:37,049 --> 00:01:43,409 and the benefits it brings to society because doing so enables our prized 18 00:01:43,409 --> 00:01:48,869 intellectual property system to fully realize its constitutional mandate to 19 00:01:48,869 --> 00:01:53,960 promote the progress of science and useful arts and that's what this new 20 00:01:53,960 --> 00:02:00,420 speaker series is about in our work at the forefront of innovation and 21 00:02:00,420 --> 00:02:05,250 entrepreneurship we meet some of the most interesting people Americans who 22 00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:10,740 are actively working to make the world a better place so we want to give all of 23 00:02:10,740 --> 00:02:15,450 our employees the opportunity to meet these same folks 24 00:02:15,450 --> 00:02:20,220 so every now and then the series will feature American inventors and 25 00:02:20,220 --> 00:02:24,030 entrepreneurs who will share their remarkable personal stories of invention 26 00:02:24,030 --> 00:02:30,360 innovation entrepreneurship or leadership with our employees and that's 27 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:34,770 important because every member of the USPTO team plays a vital role in 28 00:02:34,770 --> 00:02:39,480 achieving our mission whether you're a patent examiner reviewing new 29 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:43,319 technologies a trademark attorney helping businesses and entrepreneurs 30 00:02:43,319 --> 00:02:48,840 protect the brand's they rely on to fund new ventures or any of the hundreds of 31 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:53,910 people working to keep our lights on or our computers and phones connected or 32 00:02:53,910 --> 00:02:59,700 our employees trained trained your work makes innovation and entrepreneurship 33 00:02:59,700 --> 00:03:06,750 possible as you know we recently issued patents number 10 million in a signing 34 00:03:06,750 --> 00:03:12,810 ceremony at the White House dr. Joseph maroon was there and he explained 35 00:03:12,810 --> 00:03:19,200 directly to President Trump what he invented more specifically dr. Marrone a 36 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:24,690 recognized leader in optical and laser sensing sensing technology was the word 37 00:03:24,690 --> 00:03:31,680 at patent and million for improvements related to a field called ladar which is 38 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:36,870 similar to radar but uses lasers instead of radio waves to detect objects more 39 00:03:36,870 --> 00:03:42,299 quickly and with higher precision and exactly how he did that I will leave up 40 00:03:42,299 --> 00:03:47,100 to him to explain the details as a principal engineer fellow with Raytheon 41 00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:52,920 space and airborne systems in El Segundo California dr. Marrone has over 30 years 42 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:59,310 of experience in developing optical and radar imaging systems at Raytheon he his 43 00:03:59,310 --> 00:04:05,370 work has centered on laser laser radar but before joining that company in 2012 44 00:04:05,370 --> 00:04:10,769 he worked at Lockheed Martin and prior to that he was the chief executive 45 00:04:10,769 --> 00:04:15,930 officer of a small company that was acquired by Corning so not only is he an 46 00:04:15,930 --> 00:04:22,019 inventor he is also an entrepreneur starting with a 1991 idea to improve 47 00:04:22,019 --> 00:04:27,720 upon bifocal lenses dr. Moran is the recipient of more than 20 patents as 48 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:32,610 well as the author of over 60 publications so ladies and 49 00:04:32,610 --> 00:04:46,430 gentlemen please joining join me in welcoming dr. Joseph Moran 50 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:58,560 Thank You director ayan qu and I know that many people in this room have 51 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:04,350 worked on the celebrations associated with Patten ten million and then many of 52 00:05:04,350 --> 00:05:10,650 you others have also dedicated your your careers to the preservation I in 53 00:05:10,650 --> 00:05:14,820 identification of intellectual property thank you very much 54 00:05:14,820 --> 00:05:19,170 I'll now spend the next several minutes talking about my Alice in Wonderland 55 00:05:19,170 --> 00:05:24,480 journey through intellectual property and then becoming the recipient of 56 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:31,050 patent ten million I grew up in western New York in a family of seven children I 57 00:05:31,050 --> 00:05:36,960 was the middle and I knew that I always wanted to be a scientist my first major 58 00:05:36,960 --> 00:05:41,460 purchase was a programmable calculator and my first term paper was on the 59 00:05:41,460 --> 00:05:47,250 physics of soap bubbles I eventually went to college and there I naively 60 00:05:47,250 --> 00:05:52,260 decided that I would be a physics major an electrical engineer in a computer 61 00:05:52,260 --> 00:05:57,260 science major all at once turns out that that didn't go very well 62 00:05:57,260 --> 00:06:02,640 being at the University of Rochester though I became an optics major which 63 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:07,050 was which is kind of a famous Rochester is a famous school for the study of 64 00:06:07,050 --> 00:06:14,100 optics there I ended up being able to study holography lasers telescopes 65 00:06:14,100 --> 00:06:21,300 imaging systems it was great I sailed through the program and was fortunate to 66 00:06:21,300 --> 00:06:26,700 receive my PhD by sail through for those of you who have done sailing you know 67 00:06:26,700 --> 00:06:33,270 it's a lot of work and takes a long time so then as a research scientist my 68 00:06:33,270 --> 00:06:38,700 primary job was to come up with new ideas scientific theories and then 69 00:06:38,700 --> 00:06:43,410 typically publish them although sometimes when an idea shows good 70 00:06:43,410 --> 00:06:48,510 commercial promise it's good to patent it so I started my 71 00:06:48,510 --> 00:06:54,600 first position at a Research Institute in Ann Arbor Michigan and after a short 72 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:59,670 while I had a good idea as dr. iocked you said mentioned it was 73 00:06:59,670 --> 00:07:06,120 for a type of bifocal contact lens that was an improvement on Ben Franklin's 74 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:11,250 original invention I submitted a disclosure than a patent and before I 75 00:07:11,250 --> 00:07:15,740 knew it a patent application and then before I knew it the patent had issued a 76 00:07:15,740 --> 00:07:21,780 company then contacted us and that wanted to commercialize it so we sold 77 00:07:21,780 --> 00:07:28,410 the patent to them I made some money not a lot but I was hooked it was hooked on 78 00:07:28,410 --> 00:07:32,880 the idea that I could come up with an idea that was actually commercially 79 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:39,210 viable and then get paid for it at my job I continued to work on a variety of 80 00:07:39,210 --> 00:07:44,820 projects and again came up with a good idea that I thought was a good idea it 81 00:07:44,820 --> 00:07:50,460 was for a device called holo vision it was a laser based system for making 82 00:07:50,460 --> 00:07:57,450 measurements of precision machined parts such as automotive parts and my first 83 00:07:57,450 --> 00:08:01,560 job I meant I think I mentioned it was in Ann Arbor we were close to Detroit 84 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:08,370 which is the automotive manufacturing center of the country so this this whole 85 00:08:08,370 --> 00:08:14,070 vision invention was very well suited for that marketplace the invention 86 00:08:14,070 --> 00:08:18,539 started to proceed and eventually we built a prototype and did indeed 87 00:08:18,539 --> 00:08:22,410 discover that we were getting some commercial interest so we decided to go 88 00:08:22,410 --> 00:08:27,270 to a trade show before going to the trade show though I contacted our patent 89 00:08:27,270 --> 00:08:32,459 attorney and he told me that the trade show would constitute a disclosure a 90 00:08:32,459 --> 00:08:37,380 public disclosure and that I would need to submit any patent applications that I 91 00:08:37,380 --> 00:08:43,140 wanted to prior to the trade show the trade show though was a week away so I 92 00:08:43,140 --> 00:08:47,790 spent the next week working tirelessly with our patent attorney preparing what 93 00:08:47,790 --> 00:08:52,910 ended up being five patent applications that formed the basis of the invention 94 00:08:52,910 --> 00:08:57,660 we then were able to go to the trade show showed the technology and I learned 95 00:08:57,660 --> 00:09:02,850 a lot about preparing for a trade show or doing customer demonstrations and and 96 00:09:02,850 --> 00:09:08,640 such and it turned out that the trade show was pretty successful it was in 97 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:13,620 fact so successful that the company I was working for decided to sell the 98 00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:20,910 technology and me along with it i evaluated the opportunity and decided 99 00:09:20,910 --> 00:09:27,000 that it wasn't quite for me i knew that i had all the basic skills that i needed 100 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:31,470 to start my own company and that i would prefer to be the owner of a business 101 00:09:31,470 --> 00:09:39,060 rather than just working for one so with my wife Becky's permission and my 102 00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:44,180 charile children carefully observing I quit my job and started my own company 103 00:09:44,180 --> 00:09:50,010 life was good I worked out of my basement I had my optics a little 104 00:09:50,010 --> 00:09:55,410 machine shop electronics and computers and was on my way to starting a new 105 00:09:55,410 --> 00:10:02,430 company most days it was just me and my dog working in the basement and I would 106 00:10:02,430 --> 00:10:09,060 joke that he was my lawyer based on previous previous experiences I was able 107 00:10:09,060 --> 00:10:14,850 to develop a regular pace of just doing small things each day at a time knowing 108 00:10:14,850 --> 00:10:19,860 that eventually I would be able to build this technology then one day there was a 109 00:10:19,860 --> 00:10:24,840 knock at the door it was a person I didn't recognize he asked me for my name 110 00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:30,870 I confirmed it and then he handed me a nice big envelope I quickly realized 111 00:10:30,870 --> 00:10:36,600 that I was being served I was being sued by hollow vision the company that I had 112 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:41,760 started and then left this was very difficult because it amounted to several 113 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:47,030 people that I knew very well trying to block me from pursuing my livelihood I 114 00:10:47,030 --> 00:10:53,080 quickly realized I also needed a new lawyer I found it 115 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:58,700 after some advice I knew to go to the best attorneys in Ann Arbor and I showed 116 00:10:58,700 --> 00:11:04,070 them the envelope and explained my story the suit had to do with definitions of 117 00:11:04,070 --> 00:11:08,900 some specific intellectual property items they then explained that I was in 118 00:11:08,900 --> 00:11:13,610 pretty good shape but that the suit would probably take a year to resolve 119 00:11:13,610 --> 00:11:20,570 itself we quickly developed a defense and countersued and then went to our 120 00:11:20,570 --> 00:11:28,100 first hearing all with working very long hours was very difficult we went through 121 00:11:28,100 --> 00:11:33,050 then months of depositions and eventually polavision decided that they 122 00:11:33,050 --> 00:11:38,300 would be better off dropping their suit and we settled I was able to get back to 123 00:11:38,300 --> 00:11:46,310 my laboratory however it was after much pain and stress I got back to machining 124 00:11:46,310 --> 00:11:51,770 parts configuring lasers and programming computers electronics things that I 125 00:11:51,770 --> 00:11:57,740 really love to do and eventually I had a prototype of the new technology based on 126 00:11:57,740 --> 00:12:02,540 my whole a vision nest lesson I knew the disclosure was a very important thing so 127 00:12:02,540 --> 00:12:06,860 I contacted a patent attorney and then went through again the technology and it 128 00:12:06,860 --> 00:12:11,270 turns out that I came up with five patent applications that we submitted to 129 00:12:11,270 --> 00:12:17,000 the USPTO at about the same time some companies were showing interest in my 130 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:22,760 newest technology that I called light gauge one of the features was that in it 131 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:29,690 I had developed a $300 homemade laser that had the essential performance of a 132 00:12:29,690 --> 00:12:37,400 thirty thousand dollar device thus my unit was a very low cost system one of 133 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:41,750 the companies that showed interest in the light gauge technology was Corning 134 00:12:41,750 --> 00:12:46,250 and after going through several discussions one day I had Corning 135 00:12:46,250 --> 00:12:49,970 Representatives in my basement with my dog and I was able to do a demonstration 136 00:12:49,970 --> 00:12:56,780 of the prototype they were impressed and we mutually decided that we would do a 137 00:12:56,780 --> 00:13:02,060 business deal that was wonderful however once again I entered a year of great 138 00:13:02,060 --> 00:13:08,410 stress working through many documents and lawyers and I had to explain to my 139 00:13:08,410 --> 00:13:13,869 dog that again I needed a new attorney he was ok with that and then after a 140 00:13:13,869 --> 00:13:18,670 year though that's how long it took for the deal to go through and then 141 00:13:18,670 --> 00:13:24,040 eventually we had the deal to sell the technology and much of the value 142 00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:28,540 associated with the company had to do with the five patent applications that 143 00:13:28,540 --> 00:13:34,720 were pending our family then left in Arbor and moved back to Rochester New 144 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:39,759 York as part of the business deal I needed to do tech transfer and became an 145 00:13:39,759 --> 00:13:45,100 employee of Corning after spending about three years of at Corning we had the new 146 00:13:45,100 --> 00:13:50,619 family of products developed and launched them and then career wise I 147 00:13:50,619 --> 00:13:55,169 decided that after that I would leave Corning and become a consultant I 148 00:13:55,169 --> 00:14:00,279 consulted to a number of companies one of them was Lockheed Martin and they 149 00:14:00,279 --> 00:14:06,220 eventually asked me to become an employee I was very excited to reduce my 150 00:14:06,220 --> 00:14:12,669 stress level and after also achieving some major goals having a small business 151 00:14:12,669 --> 00:14:17,619 selling it having approximately 20 patents I decided that kind of a slower 152 00:14:17,619 --> 00:14:21,759 pace would be good for me so with my wife's permission I accepted 153 00:14:21,759 --> 00:14:27,549 the job and we moved to Boulder at that point to our children were grown and 154 00:14:27,549 --> 00:14:33,730 attending college at Lockheed my position was senior fellow which is kind 155 00:14:33,730 --> 00:14:40,059 of like being a tenured faculty member my job was to do research and at this at 156 00:14:40,059 --> 00:14:44,889 Lockheed it was much more defense oriented I was firmly a member of the 157 00:14:44,889 --> 00:14:50,319 national security innovation base where our job has developed new new ideas and 158 00:14:50,319 --> 00:14:56,949 technologies mostly for defense but sometimes commercial applications after 159 00:14:56,949 --> 00:15:01,660 working at Lockheed doing several inventions by the way over that period 160 00:15:01,660 --> 00:15:07,389 mentions that I'm very proud of after 6 years though I got the itch to get a new 161 00:15:07,389 --> 00:15:11,970 job I took an interview with Raytheon and 162 00:15:11,970 --> 00:15:16,660 after interviewing in the Los Angeles area I took a stroll down to Manhattan 163 00:15:16,660 --> 00:15:23,949 Beach there it was beautiful the beaches the weather it was always perfect so I 164 00:15:23,949 --> 00:15:28,209 then convinced my wife Becky that Southern California was the place to be 165 00:15:28,209 --> 00:15:33,730 so we loaded up the truck and there it is indeed very nice the weather is much 166 00:15:33,730 --> 00:15:40,120 better than in Rochester at Raytheon --i began working as a principal engineering 167 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:46,560 fellow similar to lockheed and after a while I had a great new idea it was for 168 00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:52,449 coherent laid are using inter pixel quadrature detection I submitted a 169 00:15:52,449 --> 00:15:58,600 patent disclosure and then eventually in application I continued to work on other 170 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:04,750 inventions in the meantime and submitted other applications and after a while I 171 00:16:04,750 --> 00:16:08,829 talked to the IP Department about this patent as I knew it would soon issue and 172 00:16:08,829 --> 00:16:13,750 that it had strong commercial applications we came up with a plan for 173 00:16:13,750 --> 00:16:18,610 commercialization how however since the patent hadn't issued yet we didn't 174 00:16:18,610 --> 00:16:24,790 execute that plan a few weeks and months passed while I was waiting for the 175 00:16:24,790 --> 00:16:30,699 patent when this June I received somewhat of a cryptic email message I 176 00:16:30,699 --> 00:16:36,819 was on a business trip it came up on my iPhone and it said that I was invited to 177 00:16:36,819 --> 00:16:40,990 a telecon the next morning concerning one of my patents that was about to 178 00:16:40,990 --> 00:16:49,509 issue hmm I quickly realized that this was probably pretty good so I attended 179 00:16:49,509 --> 00:16:56,050 to phone telecom and on it were representatives of the USPTO and our 180 00:16:56,050 --> 00:17:02,639 company from having a feeling of that this was strange it quickly turned into 181 00:17:02,639 --> 00:17:08,169 feeling of excitement as people were excited to hear me on the telecon the 182 00:17:08,169 --> 00:17:14,949 representative from the Patent Office who whose name I don't recall explained 183 00:17:14,949 --> 00:17:19,720 to me that the patent would issue and that it would be the 10 millionth I knew 184 00:17:19,720 --> 00:17:25,329 this was a big deal my first patent was in the 5 million range and those after 185 00:17:25,329 --> 00:17:29,650 that increased in numbers in into the nine millions but 186 00:17:29,650 --> 00:17:34,930 I wasn't aware that the ten-millionth was about to issue the representative of 187 00:17:34,930 --> 00:17:40,270 the USPTO explained to me that it was not only a big deal because of the 10 188 00:17:40,270 --> 00:17:45,880 millionth but it was an occasion that the USPTO wanted to celebrate and in 189 00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:49,720 this occasion they were going to introduce a new style for their patents 190 00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:56,520 and then also being a 10 millionth it was a great milestone for our nation's 191 00:17:56,520 --> 00:18:01,630 innovation and intellectual property the representative also explained that it 192 00:18:01,630 --> 00:18:05,830 was a big deal for the whole Department of Commerce because with the current 193 00:18:05,830 --> 00:18:13,180 trade negotiations a big part of that is our intellectual property basis and in 194 00:18:13,180 --> 00:18:18,420 the fact that we need to do a very good job of protecting it he also added that 195 00:18:18,420 --> 00:18:24,640 no patent had been signed by a president since Gerald Ford signed the patent for 196 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:30,790 the Bicentennial in 1976 so that the president would like to sign the patent 197 00:18:30,790 --> 00:18:37,120 Wow this was a big deal it was it was a very 198 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:42,880 big deal but at the same time we were sworn to secrecy so I knew that one of 199 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:47,320 the biggest achievements of my life was about to appear but I couldn't talk 200 00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:52,540 about it nonetheless I had a smile on my face for the next several days while we 201 00:18:52,540 --> 00:18:58,690 waited for the event to occur I did some training with corporate to sharpen my 202 00:18:58,690 --> 00:19:03,190 interview skills and then I also had a very nice conversation with director 203 00:19:03,190 --> 00:19:10,840 onku about the invention and my background then the days passed and the 204 00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:15,420 the final signing event was to occur on June 19th 205 00:19:15,420 --> 00:19:22,630 the days passed quickly by the way and then on the Sunday before the event I 206 00:19:22,630 --> 00:19:27,970 traveled to Washington DC on Monday with I met with our corporate communication 207 00:19:27,970 --> 00:19:33,010 people who knew that this would be a big news news events so they trained me 208 00:19:33,010 --> 00:19:38,960 trained me to again sharpen my interview skills and we also came up with 209 00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:43,789 a way to describe the patent rather than saying coherent lade are using intra 210 00:19:43,789 --> 00:19:48,020 pixel quadrature detection we decided that it would probably best to be call 211 00:19:48,020 --> 00:19:52,250 it to call it a new type of digital camera for measuring speed and distance 212 00:19:52,250 --> 00:19:59,149 this would come in handy later the big day soon arrived the announcement 213 00:19:59,149 --> 00:20:04,309 occurred in the morning and it was starting to be on some of the news 214 00:20:04,309 --> 00:20:10,460 stories news news sites so I started to receive congratulatory emails and phone 215 00:20:10,460 --> 00:20:17,750 calls from my friends I also did a radio interview with Kairos doll on NPR that 216 00:20:17,750 --> 00:20:21,559 was aired later in the day and I received more emails and phone calls 217 00:20:21,559 --> 00:20:29,929 from my friends some of them shocked as time got closer it became more and more 218 00:20:29,929 --> 00:20:35,179 certain that the signing would happen for those of you who live in the DC I'm 219 00:20:35,179 --> 00:20:39,950 sure you're much aware of it than I am but things can be chaotic here in the 220 00:20:39,950 --> 00:20:43,250 morning we weren't sure that the president would actually sign the patent 221 00:20:43,250 --> 00:20:47,570 they might get postponed or it might not happen at all however as the day 222 00:20:47,570 --> 00:20:53,240 progressed things were looking good I put on my suit went down got an uber 223 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:59,570 uber and began one of the most intent uber rides of my life I arrived at the 224 00:20:59,570 --> 00:21:04,309 Eisenhower executive office building said and mentioned to the Secret Service 225 00:21:04,309 --> 00:21:08,510 that I'm here for a meeting with the president they said sir that's great but 226 00:21:08,510 --> 00:21:15,020 you're over an hour early I guess I was a little nervous I continued to wait 227 00:21:15,020 --> 00:21:19,279 near the gate and soon member of our team members of our team arrived 228 00:21:19,279 --> 00:21:24,970 including the CEO of our company Tom Kennedy I hadn't met dr. Kennedy before 229 00:21:24,970 --> 00:21:32,210 but soon got to know him and it was great to meet him being one of 60,000 230 00:21:32,210 --> 00:21:38,149 employees at the White House we waited longer and then soon were brought by the 231 00:21:38,149 --> 00:21:42,620 Secret Service through the gate went through the first gate then the next 232 00:21:42,620 --> 00:21:47,480 gate we started to see more Secret Service some of them were visibly armed 233 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:50,789 and then it happened we were in the White House 234 00:21:50,789 --> 00:21:54,820 when I went in it was a little surprising because it seemed smaller 235 00:21:54,820 --> 00:21:59,950 than I thought the rooms were small the doorways were small staircases narrow 236 00:21:59,950 --> 00:22:06,960 but this is indicative of it being a kind of an older building once there we 237 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:14,770 did small talk and we learned that the the king and queen of Spain were having 238 00:22:14,770 --> 00:22:17,890 a meeting with the president before us Wow 239 00:22:17,890 --> 00:22:24,669 we were going to be right after royalty our lineup started to take place the 240 00:22:24,669 --> 00:22:28,090 president's staff members told us where we would stand inside the Oval Office 241 00:22:28,090 --> 00:22:35,860 and then it was our turn as we walked in I made a mental note to try to remember 242 00:22:35,860 --> 00:22:40,840 things as this was going to be a very special occasion as we walked into the 243 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:45,940 room the president was sitting at his desk doing a pre read of the patent 244 00:22:45,940 --> 00:22:51,299 documents that he was about to sign when it came to my name he asked for the 245 00:22:51,299 --> 00:22:59,590 pronunciation to which I said our I was able to get it out though and he said 246 00:22:59,590 --> 00:23:05,169 thank you and that he had a very good friend with the same last name the 247 00:23:05,169 --> 00:23:09,580 president was then oh and then in the room also were several members of his 248 00:23:09,580 --> 00:23:15,190 staff and then several people also from the USPTO the president was then 249 00:23:15,190 --> 00:23:19,120 directed by his staff to start the ceremonies so he began to read the 250 00:23:19,120 --> 00:23:25,419 documents the camera shutters click trap idli and after the official reading who 251 00:23:25,419 --> 00:23:30,970 signed the patent documents and then shook our hands after that he turned to 252 00:23:30,970 --> 00:23:36,789 me and said dr. Maron what is this patent about and I was able to say it's 253 00:23:36,789 --> 00:23:41,060 a new type of digital camera for measuring speed and distance 254 00:23:41,060 --> 00:23:47,360 and he said very interesting and then he added that his uncle John Trump was a 255 00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:54,740 professor at MIT who had been involved with the early development of lasers we 256 00:23:54,740 --> 00:23:59,600 posed for pictures and then after about 15 minutes the event was over I had 257 00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:04,310 officially received the 10 millionth patent and it was signed by the 258 00:24:04,310 --> 00:24:08,320 president wow that was a great moment of my life 259 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:14,150 later that evening the USPTO hosted a celebratory event at Mount Vernon that 260 00:24:14,150 --> 00:24:19,490 was attended by several members of the legislature Department of Commerce and 261 00:24:19,490 --> 00:24:25,220 USPTO my wife Becky and two of our children were able to join us and it was 262 00:24:25,220 --> 00:24:33,050 a great event that capped off an awesome day now I've been back at Raytheon doing 263 00:24:33,050 --> 00:24:37,430 my normal job for several weeks during this time I've done several more 264 00:24:37,430 --> 00:24:42,130 interviews and have become one of us somewhat of a celebrity within Raytheon 265 00:24:42,130 --> 00:24:51,980 my nickname is one East seven which when translated to geek means 10 million key 266 00:24:51,980 --> 00:24:56,690 elements of my job at Raytheon are to invent new technologies that are 267 00:24:56,690 --> 00:25:02,840 primarily used to defend our country this is an especially important job as 268 00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:09,080 we now consider some of our adversaries adversaries to be peers on a military 269 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,800 level is I've experienced throughout my career 270 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:18,080 our patent system is the basis for protecting and defining much of this 271 00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:23,150 intellectual property both domestically and internationally and I'm very 272 00:25:23,150 --> 00:25:28,340 grateful knowing that the USPTO and Commerce Department are dedicated to 273 00:25:28,340 --> 00:25:34,700 this cause also as I've discussed I'm very grateful to the job that the USPTO 274 00:25:34,700 --> 00:25:40,040 does in defining differentiating and protecting intellectual property this 275 00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:44,870 has allowed me to pursue many of my dreams including fulfilling my original 276 00:25:44,870 --> 00:25:49,130 goal of being a scientist and I'm now using that as a member of 277 00:25:49,130 --> 00:26:10,160 the national security innovation base thank you 278 00:26:11,690 --> 00:26:27,390 certainly all right just one moment here comes a mic you 279 00:26:27,390 --> 00:26:31,260 know I'm a big fan of the indie inventors that the garage inventors etc 280 00:26:31,260 --> 00:26:34,920 and it seems to be you had a pier at your time where you were that and I 281 00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,420 wanted to say from your perspective was intellectual property part the most 282 00:26:39,420 --> 00:26:44,790 protective of you or what do you think was how valuable that IP protection was 283 00:26:44,790 --> 00:26:49,020 for you to break through with the Indian mansions and the second question I would 284 00:26:49,020 --> 00:26:52,560 have would you think it would be harder today to go through the process but the 285 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,130 present patent walls etc or do you think you would have the same type of 286 00:26:56,130 --> 00:27:00,350 experience that you did like and also thank you for your contribution and 287 00:27:00,350 --> 00:27:08,070 congratulations thank you thank you so let's see for the the first part of the 288 00:27:08,070 --> 00:27:16,590 question the IP process and patenting is very important to me and as I mentioned 289 00:27:16,590 --> 00:27:23,400 it has a big part in forming the valuation of a company and then also it 290 00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:28,650 allowed me to clearly define what my inventions were so that as I moved from 291 00:27:28,650 --> 00:27:33,840 company to company I was able to point at the documents the claims and define 292 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:39,840 very carefully you know what belonged to whom then for 293 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,500 the second part of your question associated with the current laws I'm 294 00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:49,650 probably not qualified to answer that question when I do an invention I talked 295 00:27:49,650 --> 00:27:56,340 to our attorneys who helped me through that process so unfortunately I can't 296 00:27:56,340 --> 00:28:04,970 answer that in a qualified manner their questions don't be shy 297 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:15,190 thank you for coming today during your experiences as an entrepreneur aside 298 00:28:15,190 --> 00:28:19,660 from the Patent Office where there are other government or federal resources 299 00:28:19,660 --> 00:28:29,080 that you found valuable during your time in that in that area it was actually you 300 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:38,650 know primarily the Patent Office as an inventor I did not want to accept money 301 00:28:38,650 --> 00:28:46,510 for SBIR s because I didn't want to divert myself from my own goals so you 302 00:28:46,510 --> 00:28:52,930 know I decided to do it on my own and I think my biggest government partner was 303 00:28:52,930 --> 00:29:03,400 indeed the Patent Office so we have about 87 folks online right now so for 304 00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:07,120 those of you that are online please send us a question and we'll run that out 305 00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:13,780 here to doctor Maron does anyone else have a question Andre 306 00:29:21,499 --> 00:29:28,039 thanks again and congratulations again can you describe a little bit the 307 00:29:28,039 --> 00:29:35,669 inventive process you went through to come up with the new fancy fast digital 308 00:29:35,669 --> 00:29:40,710 camera obviously without getting into any confidential information yes 309 00:29:40,710 --> 00:29:47,970 certainly so for me the process of an invention typically involves an aha 310 00:29:47,970 --> 00:29:54,690 moment and I usually go through a filtering process where on one day I 311 00:29:54,690 --> 00:30:00,539 might have an aha moment then I sleep through the night and wake up the next 312 00:30:00,539 --> 00:30:07,169 day and if it's still a good idea I know that it is indeed pretty good then I day 313 00:30:07,169 --> 00:30:12,690 after that I continue to evaluate it and then after three or four days I 314 00:30:12,690 --> 00:30:17,720 typically know that it's a really good idea and then depending on whether it's 315 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:23,159 just basic research or something that's commercializable I'll decide whether to 316 00:30:23,159 --> 00:30:35,789 submit a disclosure or not other questions hi thank you so much for your 317 00:30:35,789 --> 00:30:39,899 talk it was very interesting I think I'm what advice do you have for newer 318 00:30:39,899 --> 00:30:47,899 aspiring inventors lessons learned that you wish you had known let's see so the 319 00:30:47,899 --> 00:30:57,929 number one thing is to pursue one's curiosity and then in that pursuit try 320 00:30:57,929 --> 00:31:04,320 to guide yourself by science like look at the facts you know evaluate whether 321 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:12,929 or not your idea is good be critical but continue to move along and be guided by 322 00:31:12,929 --> 00:31:19,139 science and then the other thing is perseverance you know inventing and then 323 00:31:19,139 --> 00:31:24,570 producing a prototype going through all the processes is very difficult and 324 00:31:24,570 --> 00:31:31,529 requires hard work and many long hours so it's you know probably those two 325 00:31:31,529 --> 00:31:40,100 things is be curious be smart and then be persistent and we 326 00:31:40,100 --> 00:31:50,779 have time for one last question anyone hope so you're raising your hand I'm 327 00:31:50,779 --> 00:31:54,139 actually going to ask this question on behalf of my daughter 328 00:31:54,139 --> 00:32:02,750 and so Jordan is an aspiring engineer and she wants to go into that field her 329 00:32:02,750 --> 00:32:08,899 question is what keeps you motivated and continuing to innovate and have you ever 330 00:32:08,899 --> 00:32:17,450 thought about a different career very good question so I like engineering as a 331 00:32:17,450 --> 00:32:25,570 field because it allows me to work with science and math every day and then 332 00:32:25,570 --> 00:32:32,380 let's see could you repeat these the first part of the question 333 00:32:35,190 --> 00:32:43,660 what what inspires you or continues to give you inspiration to innovate okay so 334 00:32:43,660 --> 00:32:51,610 it's it's mostly just love of the process just the whole thing of coming 335 00:32:51,610 --> 00:32:57,250 up with that idea filtering it over the days and then pursuing the underlying 336 00:32:57,250 --> 00:33:03,520 science is is great to me and then now I remember the final part of your question 337 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:07,929 which was have I considered other professions it's a funny thing because 338 00:33:07,929 --> 00:33:13,059 you know being a scientist is a long career and I have many friends who are 339 00:33:13,059 --> 00:33:22,480 attorneys physicians and other types of of professional people and I'm very 340 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:29,770 happy that throughout my long career I continue to to do what I've always 341 00:33:29,770 --> 00:33:35,380 wanted to do so speaking for myself I haven't really considered anything else 342 00:33:35,380 --> 00:33:42,790 I'm just happy being a scientist and engineer Doctor Maron we want to thank 343 00:33:42,790 --> 00:33:50,539 you so very much for your time today thank you!