1 00:00:02,750 --> 00:00:07,340 Good afternoon welcome to those of you who are with us here at the USPTO campus 2 00:00:07,340 --> 00:00:11,690 as well as those joining remotely from our regional offices and throughout the 3 00:00:11,690 --> 00:00:17,330 United States we are continuing with the USPTO speaker series program featuring 4 00:00:17,330 --> 00:00:21,890 inventors and entrepreneurs whose innovations have had a profound impact 5 00:00:21,890 --> 00:00:28,190 on the world today the USPTO is pleased to welcome Dr. Martine Rothblatt the 6 00:00:28,190 --> 00:00:33,559 creator of Sirius Radio as well as the founder of United Therapeutics now I 7 00:00:33,559 --> 00:00:39,489 will turn it over to Director Iancu Dr. Rothblatt please come up on stage 8 00:00:50,979 --> 00:00:56,479 Thank You Chris great to see everybody here and I know many people watching and 9 00:00:56,479 --> 00:01:04,720 listening online in in the USPTO tradition of teleworking so that's great 10 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:11,900 so as Chris mentioned we established this series maybe a year or so ago in 11 00:01:11,900 --> 00:01:17,150 order to bring to all of our employees at the Patent and Trademark Office as 12 00:01:17,150 --> 00:01:21,500 well as the Department of Commerce and all the rest of our neighbors here in 13 00:01:21,500 --> 00:01:27,020 Alexandria some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs who come 14 00:01:27,020 --> 00:01:33,080 before us because we do amazing work here at the PTO and as I often say the 15 00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:39,110 future comes through our doors in the future that comes through our doors is 16 00:01:39,110 --> 00:01:43,130 represented by some of the greatest Americans who contribute and have 17 00:01:43,130 --> 00:01:49,030 contributed amazing innovations and technologies 18 00:01:49,030 --> 00:01:55,390 to the United States economy and we have one of those folks with us here today 19 00:01:55,390 --> 00:02:04,090 and that is Dr. Martine Rothblatt it's an unusual situation because I usually 20 00:02:04,090 --> 00:02:09,780 get to delve into a little bit of the invention that the inventor came up with 21 00:02:09,780 --> 00:02:16,270 but here I'm gonna have to take a little bit of time because Dr. Rothblatt spans 22 00:02:16,270 --> 00:02:28,959 the spectrum of technologies which is of in my experience unprecedented so as 23 00:02:28,959 --> 00:02:35,410 early as nineteen 874 Dr. Rothblatt saw that satellite communications could 24 00:02:35,410 --> 00:02:39,640 unite the world I'm sure we're gonna hear a bit more about that over the 25 00:02:39,640 --> 00:02:43,500 course of graduate school she published the legal articles and business proposal 26 00:02:43,500 --> 00:02:48,300 defining her vision for this revolutionary change to go to private 27 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:53,500 satellite that vision became reality over a career that launched the first 28 00:02:53,500 --> 00:02:56,640 private international space communications project 29 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:02,500 PanAm set the first global satellite radio world space and the first non 30 00:03:02,500 --> 00:03:07,360 geostationary satellite to car broadcasting system Sirius satellite 31 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,260 radio by the way Sirius I learned game before 32 00:03:11,260 --> 00:03:16,780 XM this is very important to keep that in mind please she has also worked to 33 00:03:16,780 --> 00:03:19,750 make airship based Internet communications part of the ever 34 00:03:19,750 --> 00:03:25,410 expanding digital world world these achievements were accompanied by equally 35 00:03:25,410 --> 00:03:29,530 groundbreaking legal work leading to national international approval and 36 00:03:29,530 --> 00:03:36,459 acceptance of new technologies but why stop with telecommunications 37 00:03:36,459 --> 00:03:42,099 seemed fairly easy to revolutionize one industry let's let's do another so when 38 00:03:42,099 --> 00:03:45,819 her daughter was diagnosed with life-threatening pulmonary hypertension 39 00:03:45,819 --> 00:03:52,540 dr. Rothblatt created the pph cure foundation and then founded and she will 40 00:03:52,540 --> 00:03:55,450 tell us a lot more about this founded what ultimately became United 41 00:03:55,450 --> 00:04:01,329 therapeutics where she serves as CEO today dr. Roth letter and the PhD in 42 00:04:01,329 --> 00:04:05,349 medical ethics from the Bart's and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry 43 00:04:05,349 --> 00:04:10,569 in London her dissertation was later published as the book entitled your life 44 00:04:10,569 --> 00:04:15,459 or mine how geo-ethics can resolve the conflict between public and private 45 00:04:15,459 --> 00:04:20,350 interests in xenotransplantation she also led the International Bar 46 00:04:20,350 --> 00:04:23,350 Association's development of the Universal Declaration on the human 47 00:04:23,350 --> 00:04:28,930 genome and human rights for the United Nations but again why stop at those 48 00:04:28,930 --> 00:04:33,130 industries doctor Rothblatt is in additionally is an airplane and 49 00:04:33,130 --> 00:04:38,470 helicopter pilot so of course she had to change aviation as well as president of 50 00:04:38,470 --> 00:04:42,610 lung biotechnology PBC she mathematically demonstrated and 51 00:04:42,610 --> 00:04:47,800 sponsored the flight of the world first world's first electric power powered 52 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:52,820 full-size helicopter she and Rick Webb set a world speed 53 00:04:52,820 --> 00:04:56,810 record for electric helicopters of 100 knots during the first ever flight of 54 00:04:56,810 --> 00:05:00,920 two people in a battery-powered helicopter and for that 55 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:05,290 dr. Roth blood Rothblatt is in the Guinness Book of World Records 56 00:05:05,290 --> 00:05:09,620 last year back on the ground and the nearby Silver Spring Maryland she 57 00:05:09,620 --> 00:05:14,300 inaugurated the Unisphere the world's largest Net Zero office building which 58 00:05:14,300 --> 00:05:19,010 is completely powered by on-site sustainable energy technologies by the 59 00:05:19,010 --> 00:05:22,510 way is all this true what I'm saying 60 00:05:23,380 --> 00:05:29,090 to my knowledge though it seems like at least so far no revolutionary 61 00:05:29,090 --> 00:05:34,870 technologies in ocean travel right something else to work on next 62 00:05:34,870 --> 00:05:39,290 lots of accomplishment and long lists of awards including election as a member of 63 00:05:39,290 --> 00:05:43,250 the American Philosophical Society honorary Doctorate degrees from many 64 00:05:43,250 --> 00:05:47,750 universities including the ben-gurion University of the Negev a doctor of 65 00:05:47,750 --> 00:05:52,520 commercial science degree from NYU honorary that is membership in the 66 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:57,950 Forbes list of the 100 greatest living business minds recognition is one of 67 00:05:57,950 --> 00:06:04,910 Business Insider's most powerful LGBTQ people in tech just just last month she 68 00:06:04,910 --> 00:06:09,770 was officially awarded an honorary Doctor degree from of law from the 69 00:06:09,770 --> 00:06:15,290 University of Victoria and from that flew straight to Texas to receive the 70 00:06:15,290 --> 00:06:22,760 Excellence Award in electronic aviation from Ross Perot's son she is also a 71 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:28,540 three-time Bruin this is the best part of the of dr. Roth Blatz career 72 00:06:28,540 --> 00:06:35,290 three-time Bruin we seeing a BA JD and MBA from UCLA 73 00:06:35,290 --> 00:06:42,919 in January of last of last year she was presented with a UCLA medal which is the 74 00:06:42,919 --> 00:06:47,810 call the school's highest honor or her work in remaking how people around the 75 00:06:47,810 --> 00:06:53,930 world live that is an amazing career I could go on and on but with that let me 76 00:06:53,930 --> 00:06:58,040 stop and welcome dr. Rothblatt thank you for being here and we'd love to hear 77 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:08,990 from you thank you so much thank you so much mr. director for that very generous 78 00:07:08,990 --> 00:07:13,970 and kind introduction it's a great pleasure for me to be at the Patent and 79 00:07:13,970 --> 00:07:19,490 Trademark Office I'm a huge fan of patents and trademarks we have in our 80 00:07:19,490 --> 00:07:24,020 company's offices in Research Triangle Park North Carolina and in Silver Spring 81 00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:30,020 Maryland a very large wall which is called the inventors wall of honor and 82 00:07:30,020 --> 00:07:36,169 on that wall we have all of the bronze plaques that you can get memorializing 83 00:07:36,169 --> 00:07:41,060 patents that have been issued by the Patent and Trademark Office and each 84 00:07:41,060 --> 00:07:46,099 year on national inventors day we have a like a wine and cheese reception to 85 00:07:46,099 --> 00:07:50,389 honor all the different employees and United therapeutics that have made 86 00:07:50,389 --> 00:07:57,470 invention since the previous year so inventors inventions trademarks these 87 00:07:57,470 --> 00:08:03,830 are all very crucial to the accomplishment of all of these industry 88 00:08:03,830 --> 00:08:10,220 changing feats that director leskew referred to I'd like to start off with a 89 00:08:10,220 --> 00:08:15,760 quick couple minute video that illustrates some of the different 90 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:21,380 industry changing activities that we're involved with and that all of and that 91 00:08:21,380 --> 00:08:26,120 which all of you by supporting the Patent and Trademark Office helped us to 92 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,660 accomplish these very cool things that you're going to see in this video we 93 00:08:29,660 --> 00:08:35,080 couldn't be doing without the in contributions of everybody in the USPTO 94 00:08:35,080 --> 00:08:39,039 could you please show the video 95 00:08:49,250 --> 00:08:56,449 in 2011 United therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt challenged her company to 96 00:08:56,449 --> 00:09:02,480 before the decade was out transplant an end-stage pulmonary disease patient with 97 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:08,410 a manufactured lung and returned them safely back to health by 2017 they were 98 00:09:08,410 --> 00:09:14,810 manufacturing over along a month and by 2019 dozens of lives had been saved but 99 00:09:14,810 --> 00:09:19,009 the need for transplantable hearts and lungs is thousands of times greater and 100 00:09:19,009 --> 00:09:23,300 a way is needed to deliver these tens of thousands of organs without the 101 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:29,180 drawbacks of conventional rotorcraft so the biotechnology company led by Sirius 102 00:09:29,180 --> 00:09:34,639 XM's creator who was also an avid rotorcraft pilot designed and optionally 103 00:09:34,639 --> 00:09:39,949 piloted fully battery-powered rota craft together with her partners at Tier one 104 00:09:39,949 --> 00:09:44,660 engineering they built and flew prototypes that establish Guinness World 105 00:09:44,660 --> 00:09:50,839 Records for electric helicopter distance altitude airspeed and payload as their 106 00:09:50,839 --> 00:09:54,879 electric helicopters move towards certification they are simultaneously 107 00:09:54,879 --> 00:09:59,750 ramping up their organ manufacturing capabilities by the end of the coming 108 00:09:59,750 --> 00:10:04,519 decade they expect to manufacture organs that are customized to the patient's DNA 109 00:10:04,519 --> 00:10:09,920 so no immunosuppression will be needed these personalized organs will be 110 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:13,459 delivered from their points of manufacture to the transplanting 111 00:10:13,459 --> 00:10:19,360 Hospital on set schedules by a fleet of hundreds of quieter zero-carbon and 112 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:27,360 pilot in rotorcraft at United therapeutics biology is technology 113 00:10:27,839 --> 00:10:34,420 alright great so thank you for the video I want to spend the next half an hour or 114 00:10:34,420 --> 00:10:37,000 so asking you a number of questions and then we'll open it up to the audience 115 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,529 for any questions they might have but just watching this video 116 00:10:41,529 --> 00:10:45,310 seeing the helicopters the first question that pops to mind which I don't 117 00:10:45,310 --> 00:10:50,079 want to ask you is aren't their helicopter companies out there that can 118 00:10:50,079 --> 00:10:55,750 make helicopters as opposed to a therapeutics company but that takes me 119 00:10:55,750 --> 00:11:03,399 back to the first story that you have which is satellite radio what led you to 120 00:11:03,399 --> 00:11:07,839 create satellite radio wasn't there radio that was good enough people were 121 00:11:07,839 --> 00:11:13,360 listening they seemed happy they were they banging on your door saying we want 122 00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:16,930 satellite radio how did that come about so Andre it's a really great question 123 00:11:16,930 --> 00:11:22,870 and in fact I wish with all of these inventions that other people would do it 124 00:11:22,870 --> 00:11:28,750 because in fact it's a humongous amount of work to to not only like come up with 125 00:11:28,750 --> 00:11:33,579 the invention to organize a company to make it happen to raise the capital to 126 00:11:33,579 --> 00:11:38,199 change the laws to to launch it it's it's a it's a huge huge amount of effort 127 00:11:38,199 --> 00:11:41,470 and the whole time it's like you're walking on a tightrope 128 00:11:41,470 --> 00:11:46,029 you never know that like if you make one mistake that you're gonna fall off the 129 00:11:46,029 --> 00:11:50,560 tightrope and there could be like nothing at the bottom so to give the 130 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:56,589 example of Sirius XM I was already an expert in the field of satellite 131 00:11:56,589 --> 00:12:01,089 communications and this takes you back to the days when you know how many of 132 00:12:01,089 --> 00:12:05,890 you remember when satellite dishes were like you know the size the big thing 133 00:12:05,890 --> 00:12:10,470 like that in West Virginia they call them the state flower 134 00:12:10,470 --> 00:12:17,970 and but I I knew that by the laws of electrical engineering that the 135 00:12:17,970 --> 00:12:23,700 satellite dish size was inversely proportional to the power of the signal 136 00:12:23,700 --> 00:12:28,800 that was received on the ground from satellite so I knew that Rockets were 137 00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:33,750 becoming larger it would be possible to build more powerful satellites also it 138 00:12:33,750 --> 00:12:39,360 was possible to fold larger and larger aperture antennas inside a rocket shroud 139 00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:44,010 so you could really have both more power and you could focus that power on 140 00:12:44,010 --> 00:12:49,200 smaller and smaller portions of the Earth's surface such as just the United 141 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:53,730 States instead of spreading the signal over the whole face of the earth as seen 142 00:12:53,730 --> 00:12:58,650 from the geostationary orbit which is by the way 1/6 of the way to the moon 143 00:12:58,650 --> 00:13:03,450 and if the signal was powerful enough then you could make that satellite dish 144 00:13:03,450 --> 00:13:09,150 smaller and smaller and smaller until it would just be a section of a parabola it 145 00:13:09,150 --> 00:13:13,770 would be flat just a small little section about the size that of my making 146 00:13:13,770 --> 00:13:18,510 with my fingers here in that case we could mount it on top of a car roof and 147 00:13:18,510 --> 00:13:23,070 you could stay tuned to a satellite signal while you were driving around 148 00:13:23,070 --> 00:13:27,210 anywhere in the country so I did in fact think that the radio 149 00:13:27,210 --> 00:13:31,620 broadcasters would be tremendously excited about this so the first thing I 150 00:13:31,620 --> 00:13:36,420 did is rode up happens and filed them with a Patent and Trademark Office the 151 00:13:36,420 --> 00:13:42,150 second thing that I did was went to the FCC and I had searched the radio 152 00:13:42,150 --> 00:13:47,610 frequencies for signals that would be ideal in passing through the atmosphere 153 00:13:47,610 --> 00:13:51,210 so that we wouldn't have to make our job even more difficult 154 00:13:51,210 --> 00:13:55,470 forcing a signal through parts of the atmosphere that were relatively opaque 155 00:13:55,470 --> 00:14:02,370 to the microwave region signal I found these ideal frequency bands I crafted a 156 00:14:02,370 --> 00:14:07,680 good reasonable argument why the current occupants should be displaced to other 157 00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:12,540 frequency bands because there was plenty of frequency bands for things like 158 00:14:12,540 --> 00:14:17,490 electronic newsgathering trucks showing accidents on the highway but no 159 00:14:17,490 --> 00:14:22,860 frequencies for satellite radio and then I went to the big radio 160 00:14:22,860 --> 00:14:29,280 companies ABC radio CBS radio infinity radio and I said here is a way that you 161 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:35,910 can gather the entire country listening to your signal and every one of them 162 00:14:35,910 --> 00:14:41,760 Andre they said there this is ridiculous they said our engineers are sure us that 163 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:47,490 there's no way for a signal to work on the car from a satellite secondly even 164 00:14:47,490 --> 00:14:53,010 if that was possible it would never be approved by the FCC because the FCC 165 00:14:53,010 --> 00:14:57,600 rules say that no operator of a radio or television station can have more than 166 00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:02,070 one or two handfuls of licenses in different cities you're saying that one 167 00:15:02,070 --> 00:15:07,140 company is going to control a hundred channels in every town village nook and 168 00:15:07,140 --> 00:15:11,610 cranny city and suburban area in the whole country that that's almost like 169 00:15:11,610 --> 00:15:16,070 that's insane they never agree with that in fact it contravenes the 170 00:15:16,070 --> 00:15:20,880 Communications Act and then finally even if you overcame all of those obstacles 171 00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:26,970 who's going to be listening on day one well on you know local FM station you 172 00:15:26,970 --> 00:15:31,320 know one oh eight point one one oh five point one we've got at least a million 173 00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:35,520 listeners but there'll be nobody listening why would advertisers pay for 174 00:15:35,520 --> 00:15:38,790 something there's nobody listen I said no you don't need advertisers people 175 00:15:38,790 --> 00:15:43,110 will love having a hundred different channels the love having serious Sinatra 176 00:15:43,110 --> 00:15:47,490 they'll love having Howard Stern they'll pay every month for this they said 177 00:15:47,490 --> 00:15:52,980 nobody's gonna pay for radio I then said but they pay for TV that's different so 178 00:15:52,980 --> 00:15:58,260 I could not get the existing industry to agree to do this consequently we had to 179 00:15:58,260 --> 00:16:01,710 go to Wall Street we had to raise money thank goodness 180 00:16:01,710 --> 00:16:05,970 that we had patents that gave us protection on our design thank goodness 181 00:16:05,970 --> 00:16:10,350 that we had an FCC license that allowed us a semi exclusive right to broadcast 182 00:16:10,350 --> 00:16:15,180 and now I can't tell you they're not more people Audrey come up and hug me 183 00:16:15,180 --> 00:16:19,470 for being able to listen to Howard Stern on their Sirius XM radio then for the 184 00:16:19,470 --> 00:16:26,190 medicines that we've created the save people's lives so do you think that in 185 00:16:26,190 --> 00:16:32,010 the long run that's changed the terrestrial broadcasting industry and do 186 00:16:32,010 --> 00:16:35,370 you feel sorry about that no I don't I don't feel sorry about it 187 00:16:35,370 --> 00:16:38,090 and I said to them I gave a quote from 188 00:16:38,090 --> 00:16:41,480 arthur c clarke who's always been my inspiration on 189 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:47,210 satellite communications arthur c clarke regrets he passed away but he said he 190 00:16:47,210 --> 00:16:51,170 only regretted one thing in his life and he lived a good long life to almost 90 191 00:16:51,170 --> 00:16:55,040 years old he said he regretted never filing a patent for the idea of the 192 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:59,480 geostationary orbit he was the one that came up with an idea that if you launch 193 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:05,450 a satellite six earth radio i out from from the earth that it will go around 194 00:17:05,450 --> 00:17:09,320 the earth at the same time that the Earth rotates on its axis and therefore 195 00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:12,890 it will always be above the same part of the earth well that's what we use in 196 00:17:12,890 --> 00:17:17,390 Sirius XM and and many other satellite systems DirecTV he never filed a patent 197 00:17:17,390 --> 00:17:22,280 on that but he had a great quote his quote was no form of technology ever 198 00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:27,460 becomes obsolete it only becomes less and less important as the technological 199 00:17:27,460 --> 00:17:32,240 horizon widens and so it is that there are still you can you know if you can 200 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:37,280 find a radio that tunes 2 a.m. you will hear people broadcasting on AM people 201 00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:42,620 still broadcast on FM and tens of millions of people subscribe to Theory 202 00:17:42,620 --> 00:17:46,340 affect them so one of the biggest challenges that inventors and 203 00:17:46,340 --> 00:17:51,020 entrepreneurs have basically is what you have described by definition when you 204 00:17:51,020 --> 00:17:56,270 come up with something new you meet a lot of resistance from folks who are 205 00:17:56,270 --> 00:17:59,330 used to what they already have and they shrug their shoulders why do we need 206 00:17:59,330 --> 00:18:06,290 something else but some folks a subset of folks you're a very good example of 207 00:18:06,290 --> 00:18:11,780 this persisting the face of that tremendous adversity what is it if you 208 00:18:11,780 --> 00:18:16,100 can think back in your career what is it that gave you the additional motivation 209 00:18:16,100 --> 00:18:23,270 or you know I don't know what to call it stamina and and and desire to keep 210 00:18:23,270 --> 00:18:28,460 fighting and overcome these tremendous odds not just in the technology space 211 00:18:28,460 --> 00:18:36,950 but also in business and industry so the the the book said I most enjoyed reading 212 00:18:36,950 --> 00:18:45,230 as I was a kid were biographies of other people not not just inventors but but 213 00:18:45,230 --> 00:18:49,580 mostly inventors and scientists and the story of every and 214 00:18:49,580 --> 00:18:55,730 and scientists going back you know 200 years or more is that of people being 215 00:18:55,730 --> 00:18:59,510 very skeptical that this thing will never work 216 00:18:59,510 --> 00:19:05,690 you know Morse was laughed out of Congress when he came and presented the 217 00:19:05,690 --> 00:19:14,690 The Telegraph Tesla was was told that you know AC was impossible there it's 218 00:19:14,690 --> 00:19:17,900 just like the whole you know Westinghouse was told all of his 219 00:19:17,900 --> 00:19:24,050 numerous inventions couldn't be done history is full of this over and over so 220 00:19:24,050 --> 00:19:30,050 these biographies of great inventors when I'm you know 10 12 14 16 years old 221 00:19:30,050 --> 00:19:36,230 this became like like you know my liturgy like my Bible and when you have 222 00:19:36,230 --> 00:19:42,370 been brought up with literally dozens and dozens examples of people who 223 00:19:42,370 --> 00:19:48,410 followed the physics followed the science and had their visions turn out 224 00:19:48,410 --> 00:19:54,140 to be true notwithstanding all of the other objections it really stiffens your 225 00:19:54,140 --> 00:19:59,270 backbone in it and it fills you with spirit and I can say to myself I'm 226 00:19:59,270 --> 00:20:03,800 channeling my inner Westinghouse you know if Westinghouse could demonstrate 227 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:12,770 that a river dozens of miles away from a major urban city can have its power 228 00:20:12,770 --> 00:20:19,010 transfer transitioned into electricity and and sent dozens of miles when even 229 00:20:19,010 --> 00:20:25,010 Edison thought that was impossible then you know I myself can can come up with 230 00:20:25,010 --> 00:20:34,070 this idea of satellite radio or electric helicopters is a component of this an 231 00:20:34,070 --> 00:20:42,980 ignorance of of the sense of fear or failure the fear of failure how do you 232 00:20:42,980 --> 00:20:47,870 overcome the fear of failure that so many in modern society have or maybe you 233 00:20:47,870 --> 00:20:54,380 don't have that sense of fear of failure no I I do have that sense of fear of 234 00:20:54,380 --> 00:21:01,940 failure and I never had it worse then in the case of having to save my daughter's 235 00:21:01,940 --> 00:21:09,680 life everything else was if I if I failed I I 236 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:15,470 would try something else if I failed with SiriusXM I would make another type 237 00:21:15,470 --> 00:21:21,260 of satellite communication system if I failed with an electric helicopter I 238 00:21:21,260 --> 00:21:27,500 would find another way to make a greener form of Transportation but with my 239 00:21:27,500 --> 00:21:31,970 daughter's life if I failed she was a hundred percent going to die and that 240 00:21:31,970 --> 00:21:36,380 was determined by the doctors at Children's National Medical Center just 241 00:21:36,380 --> 00:21:42,170 across the Potomac here and and other experts and it was in a field that I had 242 00:21:42,170 --> 00:21:47,150 no preparation for I my background is in electrical engineering so things that 243 00:21:47,150 --> 00:21:53,480 are like you know kind of cut and dry like like physics and math I feel most 244 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:58,970 comfortable with biology just seemed to me he's like such a black box almost so 245 00:21:58,970 --> 00:22:05,210 difficult to really ever predict the output from from any given input so I 246 00:22:05,210 --> 00:22:13,430 very much sweated you know everyday and everynight dead if I don't succeed our 247 00:22:13,430 --> 00:22:19,910 daughter whose name is Genesis would die and that drove me to a higher level of 248 00:22:19,910 --> 00:22:26,540 work and insistence on success than I ever had before and that ultimately led 249 00:22:26,540 --> 00:22:31,430 to the United therapeutics company that you currently lead so talk a little bit 250 00:22:31,430 --> 00:22:39,050 more about that's a creation story from your daughter's illness to the creation 251 00:22:39,050 --> 00:22:44,600 of this company and the complete change in your professional profile so once 252 00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:50,360 again it was it was these you know naysayers and these ankle-biters and 253 00:22:50,360 --> 00:22:57,260 these negative East people who said there's no way to save your daughter 254 00:22:57,260 --> 00:23:03,800 nobody has ever lived more than five years with this disease the only hope is 255 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:08,630 a lung transplant but the chances of her getting one for her she was just a 256 00:23:08,630 --> 00:23:14,150 little kid that small size is is very short and that just trades one disease 257 00:23:14,150 --> 00:23:18,470 for another disease I love chronic rejection which for lung 258 00:23:18,470 --> 00:23:22,880 transplants half the people die in five years so it's not a really good solution 259 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:28,130 now can't you see what I'm working on with the immune suppression free organ 260 00:23:28,130 --> 00:23:35,900 manufacturing and then when I finally found a molecule that I believed would 261 00:23:35,900 --> 00:23:43,130 specifically address her disease and do so successfully I was told that that I 262 00:23:43,130 --> 00:23:47,690 didn't know what I was talking about because I wasn't a molecular biologist I 263 00:23:47,690 --> 00:23:53,899 had no medical people on my team and when I finally did get some medical 264 00:23:53,899 --> 00:23:58,340 people on my team and I finally did begin making the medicine it turns out 265 00:23:58,340 --> 00:24:03,260 this medicine has a very short half-life of just a couple minutes that means it 266 00:24:03,260 --> 00:24:08,690 has to be infused into the body 24 hours a day 365 days a year 267 00:24:08,690 --> 00:24:13,130 well nobody's gonna want their daughter to be like you know living with like a 268 00:24:13,130 --> 00:24:20,090 you know ivy tree so I had to figure out a way that would be compatible with the 269 00:24:20,090 --> 00:24:26,390 good quality of life so I had to invent a delivery system and the molecule at 270 00:24:26,390 --> 00:24:31,940 the same time every step along the way Andrae people said you know we feel 271 00:24:31,940 --> 00:24:35,390 really everybody always felt very sorry for me I was like I was being pitied to 272 00:24:35,390 --> 00:24:41,179 be frank but inch-by-inch I move forward and I just tried to say 273 00:24:41,179 --> 00:24:45,860 everyday what progress can I make this day what goal do I have for this week I 274 00:24:45,860 --> 00:24:53,210 am a viciously goal-oriented person and my partner beam is as well so sometimes 275 00:24:53,210 --> 00:24:58,309 the challenging house to grow up in but but both of us we have daily goals 276 00:24:58,309 --> 00:25:02,120 weekly goals monthly goals and we just like viciously pursue our goals 277 00:25:02,120 --> 00:25:07,010 long story short our medicine was approved it saved the life of our 278 00:25:07,010 --> 00:25:11,000 Genesis dawn of our daughter Genesis and thousands and thousands of other people 279 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:16,840 today she was patented in the US Patent and Trademark Office 280 00:25:21,270 --> 00:25:26,680 your daughter was 10 when she was diagnosed and in how old is she now 281 00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:33,310 she's in her 30s now so it worked and I've met I've met you know there's so 282 00:25:33,310 --> 00:25:37,390 many I hate to sound like you know keep turning Impossibles 283 00:25:37,390 --> 00:25:45,130 into I'm Possible's but it is a is a fact like so after she had this she I 284 00:25:45,130 --> 00:25:48,370 thought she'd be really grateful said well no I really would like something 285 00:25:48,370 --> 00:25:55,560 more like the asthma inhalers that my friends at school have fun okay you know 286 00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:02,650 and and it was like all over again like I woulda first I thought that people 287 00:26:02,650 --> 00:26:06,280 would give me some credit for Sirius XM and Pan Am sat and stuff and believed I 288 00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:10,420 could do this medicine no they said well that's that's fine that satellites this 289 00:26:10,420 --> 00:26:14,080 is medicine and I thought people give me some credit for this medicine they know 290 00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:18,280 it's impossible to make this medicine ever work by inhalation finally we did 291 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,030 get it to work by inhalation got another patent in the Patent and Trademark 292 00:26:22,030 --> 00:26:28,180 Office for that and then finally now we've reduced it just to appeal that you 293 00:26:28,180 --> 00:26:35,200 have to take three times a day and my goal okay is now and our team is working 294 00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,890 very hard we figured out how to make this appeal that you only have to take 295 00:26:38,890 --> 00:26:43,210 once a day and one of the reasons I like the patent system a lot and this is a 296 00:26:43,210 --> 00:26:47,590 little bit counterintuitive is the patents that we got all those ones I 297 00:26:47,590 --> 00:26:52,090 just mentioned they of course run out in so many years and once they run out then 298 00:26:52,090 --> 00:26:57,490 you know people can make generic copies of your medicines or whatnot and I tell 299 00:26:57,490 --> 00:27:01,750 people I think this whole system is a good system because if it wasn't for 300 00:27:01,750 --> 00:27:06,730 this system we might sit on our laurels with a pill that you take three times a 301 00:27:06,730 --> 00:27:10,210 day and instead um now that's difficult for these patients 302 00:27:10,210 --> 00:27:15,430 every time they miss a dose the disease grabs another kind of like millimeter of 303 00:27:15,430 --> 00:27:20,200 lung space so that's what's driven me to make a pill that works once a day and 304 00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:24,880 that's what's driving me harder to make a organ that won't be rejected so you 305 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,560 off to take any pills at all yeah you know there's obviously a big debate in 306 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:35,119 this country about drug pricing like one of the arguments that's being 307 00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:42,379 made against some folks make against patents is why get patents on 308 00:27:42,379 --> 00:27:47,990 improvements so you already you know have a drug that's administered three 309 00:27:47,990 --> 00:27:51,259 times a day you're not necessarily making a new molecules and the like 310 00:27:51,259 --> 00:27:55,309 you're just improving the dosage or the delivery mechanism why give a patent on 311 00:27:55,309 --> 00:27:59,600 that so those people who say that I don't think they've talked to too many 312 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:06,799 patients and if you talk to a patient for example the first parenteral pumps 313 00:28:06,799 --> 00:28:12,379 that were used for delivering this weighed like a kilo now imagine walking 314 00:28:12,379 --> 00:28:17,210 around your whole life with a kilo of think it's so big you had to wear it in 315 00:28:17,210 --> 00:28:22,309 a fanny pack the first versions of this medicine they were unstable at room 316 00:28:22,309 --> 00:28:26,570 temperature that meant that that fanny pack with a kilo weight thing had to be 317 00:28:26,570 --> 00:28:31,700 surrounded by ice ice obviously he's not going to wait last all day so now you're 318 00:28:31,700 --> 00:28:35,499 tethered to like a freezer where you have to go and refill your fanny pack 319 00:28:35,499 --> 00:28:40,279 should somebody get a patent on improvement on that yeah I think so and 320 00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:44,720 thank goodness that people have and now we've reduced the size of those pumps - 321 00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:50,509 it's like a small deck of cards smaller than the deck of cards we now hope that 322 00:28:50,509 --> 00:28:55,970 be approved in 2020 a version of that pump that is so small and requires such 323 00:28:55,970 --> 00:29:00,259 little power that it actually can be implanted inside the patient's abdomen 324 00:29:00,259 --> 00:29:04,820 so that they don't have any observable sign that they're on medicines at all 325 00:29:04,820 --> 00:29:11,509 for for medicine I would say medicine is the story of improvements should we 326 00:29:11,509 --> 00:29:16,100 still be like chiseling bark off of a tree to get some aspirin or I mean it's 327 00:29:16,100 --> 00:29:21,649 crazy right so I want to go back to something you mentioned the second 328 00:29:21,649 --> 00:29:27,710 minute ago and a little bit more into that you you did say it you said that so 329 00:29:27,710 --> 00:29:31,580 you're working on your daughter's you to come up with with a treatment for your 330 00:29:31,580 --> 00:29:36,259 daughter and you found a molecule that works but I want to spend a second on 331 00:29:36,259 --> 00:29:43,309 that how does an electrical engineer a satellite engineer just go about to find 332 00:29:43,309 --> 00:29:47,480 the molecule that works I mean I you know mechanical aerospace engineer I 333 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:52,520 don't even know where I would begin even if I wanted to so the answer is is 334 00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:58,220 reading and research is is where it begins and you have to read first of all 335 00:29:58,220 --> 00:30:04,100 with what I would do is I'd go into a library and I would find index entries 336 00:30:04,100 --> 00:30:09,890 for pulmonary arterial hypertension to understand what this disease was I'd 337 00:30:09,890 --> 00:30:15,140 look in medical textbooks for pulmonary arterial hypertension and people had 338 00:30:15,140 --> 00:30:19,669 written books and described this disease at the end of each article and at the 339 00:30:19,669 --> 00:30:24,140 end of a chapter of a book there'd be references the footnotes just like in 340 00:30:24,140 --> 00:30:28,010 every patent disclosure you got to disclose you know at the upfront all the 341 00:30:28,010 --> 00:30:32,120 other people that have you know done things that are similar so I would go 342 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:38,030 and get those references I read each one of those references at the beginning a 343 00:30:38,030 --> 00:30:42,530 lot of the references were Greek to me because it wasn't it wasn't my field so 344 00:30:42,530 --> 00:30:46,730 then I went back to even a high school biology book to understand okay what are 345 00:30:46,730 --> 00:30:50,570 they talking about here back to a high school chemistry book how do these 346 00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:54,679 chemicals work together then I would go back to the article I still didn't 347 00:30:54,679 --> 00:30:58,850 understand enough I would go to a college-level biology Anatomy or 348 00:30:58,850 --> 00:31:03,440 chemistry book and that was something I could now understand so I'd read the 349 00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:07,580 high school level stuff then I would go back to the peer review article aha I 350 00:31:07,580 --> 00:31:12,500 see why this molecule might work there's more references I would follow all of 351 00:31:12,500 --> 00:31:16,820 those references and you keep doing that until finally you're reading articles 352 00:31:16,820 --> 00:31:21,620 that the references of which more than 90% of which you've already read as 353 00:31:21,620 --> 00:31:25,909 referenced in other articles if you're obsessive like me you actually get down 354 00:31:25,909 --> 00:31:29,650 to the last reference you're gonna read every article hurt somebody's quoted 355 00:31:29,650 --> 00:31:34,159 because my sweet daughter Genesis was in the hospital at Children's National 356 00:31:34,159 --> 00:31:38,870 Medical Center for so long when she was able to get from the intensive care ward 357 00:31:38,870 --> 00:31:42,880 to the regular ward I would have her come down to the library with me and 358 00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:49,880 just kind of help me file these articles and sit it's it's it's as simple as that 359 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:55,190 it's just reading and researching reading and researching sounds very 360 00:31:55,190 --> 00:32:00,070 simple Bismarck I expect the molecule next 361 00:32:00,910 --> 00:32:06,680 so I'm gonna open it up to questions there are microphones in the three 362 00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:11,960 aisles please if you have questions go to the microphones while you're doing 363 00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:18,380 that you know we are the Patent and Trademark Office I know you have many 364 00:32:18,380 --> 00:32:24,440 trademarks and you have a particularly interesting story regarding the name of 365 00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:29,180 your current company yes we we like trademarks at United therapeutics we 366 00:32:29,180 --> 00:32:34,460 have because one of our big activities right now is manufacturing an unlimited 367 00:32:34,460 --> 00:32:39,260 supply of transplantable organs so nobody anymore needs to die on the organ 368 00:32:39,260 --> 00:32:44,570 transplant list we have trademarked I would have liked a 369 00:32:44,570 --> 00:32:52,310 trademark I lung I heart I kidney and I liver but I think Apple likes really 370 00:32:52,310 --> 00:32:57,220 yeah covered that space but we did get our trademarks for ulong you you heart 371 00:32:57,220 --> 00:33:02,990 and and so and so forth but the interesting story that the director was 372 00:33:02,990 --> 00:33:09,380 referring to is the first name of United therapeutics was lung rx which basically 373 00:33:09,380 --> 00:33:14,390 shows you just how naive I was really at the beginning of this is I just wanted 374 00:33:14,390 --> 00:33:19,730 to help my daughter's lung problem and I knew that like you know Rx was like the 375 00:33:19,730 --> 00:33:25,210 just lamest name for a pharmaceutical or a drug so I called it lung rx 376 00:33:25,210 --> 00:33:31,940 when I went out to raise capital some people criticize me saying you you're 377 00:33:31,940 --> 00:33:36,530 just a one-trick pony you got this one molecule for pulmonary hypertension what 378 00:33:36,530 --> 00:33:39,710 happens if somebody cures it and then you'll be you know y'all have no 379 00:33:39,710 --> 00:33:46,340 business you need to have developed you know find some more diseases to treat by 380 00:33:46,340 --> 00:33:51,650 the way you know I'm so thankful that we have been able to do that and one of the 381 00:33:51,650 --> 00:33:58,970 medicines that we offer cures and neuroblastoma which is a almost 382 00:33:58,970 --> 00:34:07,940 inevitably fatal pediatric cancer in 50% of of the kids who who have it so in any 383 00:34:07,940 --> 00:34:12,050 of them we changed our name from lung rx to lrx 384 00:34:12,050 --> 00:34:18,050 with the L standing for life-saving medicines we were then sued by a company 385 00:34:18,050 --> 00:34:25,010 who had the trademark for their name L XR and they pronounced it elixir like a 386 00:34:25,010 --> 00:34:30,740 life-saving thing and they said that we lrx we're trading on their good name of 387 00:34:30,740 --> 00:34:36,050 l XR I mean the thought frankly never never came into my mind of all the weird 388 00:34:36,050 --> 00:34:41,840 ideas that came into my mind that's not one of them but they sued us and so we 389 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:46,040 said that's it we're gonna change our name to get away from all of this l RX l 390 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:51,020 XR I was advised by really good trademark attorneys that if you have a 391 00:34:51,020 --> 00:34:55,310 good trademark the worst thing you could do is keep it secret because it's only 392 00:34:55,310 --> 00:34:59,000 going to be good like this of this area of use you have to actually use it the 393 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:03,470 Patent and Trademark Office is not a place to lock up secrets in a in the 394 00:35:03,470 --> 00:35:09,350 freezer it's a place to use things so we adopted the new name United therapeutics 395 00:35:09,350 --> 00:35:14,150 and we took out full-page advertisements New England Journal of Medicine for a 396 00:35:14,150 --> 00:35:20,420 year saying here you hear you United therapeutics is here great ok so let's 397 00:35:20,420 --> 00:35:27,350 take some questions sir thank you for coming doctor or oplan I have a two-part 398 00:35:27,350 --> 00:35:35,450 question piggybacking each other first is on your helicopter is a barrier 399 00:35:35,450 --> 00:35:41,750 protect helicopter so if so here comes the piggyback how did you balance the 400 00:35:41,750 --> 00:35:48,320 weight lift function if at all the weight or the battery versus the lift 401 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,280 function on the Lakotas in your design yeah that's a great question and that's 402 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,610 I love that question because that ties back to the directors initial point 403 00:35:55,610 --> 00:36:00,590 I did not want to get into really manufacturing helicopters got a plate 404 00:36:00,590 --> 00:36:06,380 full with all of these organs and other things but I am a pilot and I I know 405 00:36:06,380 --> 00:36:12,500 people at the major helicopter companies so I am also a very much of an 406 00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:18,110 enthusiast for electric cars so of course you know I had like one of the 407 00:36:18,110 --> 00:36:23,180 first Tesla's and I tried to learn everything I could about the car and 408 00:36:23,180 --> 00:36:27,480 understand the weight the power output Valerie's and I didn't mathematical 409 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:39,060 calculations and I saw that the that the 250 kilowatt which was I'm sorry the 750 410 00:36:39,060 --> 00:36:46,020 kilowatts which was equivalent to a thousand horsepower matched exactly the 411 00:36:46,020 --> 00:36:54,300 power output of my bell 206 Jet Ranger and so I figured that the power of the 412 00:36:54,300 --> 00:37:00,480 Tesla was in fact had an equivalent amount of power to the power output of 413 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:06,180 the of the helicopter and now with the helicopter I could keep that power 414 00:37:06,180 --> 00:37:11,580 output going as long as I pour fuel into it as long as I pour gas into it so it 415 00:37:11,580 --> 00:37:17,250 has a 70 gallon gas tank and that gas will run through it in a couple hours so 416 00:37:17,250 --> 00:37:23,190 I can fly for two two hours in that helicopter but if I powered that same 417 00:37:23,190 --> 00:37:28,320 helicopter with the batteries from my Tesla I would be able to power it for 418 00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:33,330 about 15 minutes so that was actually very encouraging to me on a number of 419 00:37:33,330 --> 00:37:38,280 accounts first I thought well if I could do it for 15 minutes then there are 420 00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:42,210 improvements I could make that turn the 15 minutes in the 20 minutes and 25 of 421 00:37:42,210 --> 00:37:47,400 the 30 minutes so these are the improvements I went about doing first of 422 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,870 all a helicopter has a very bad lift-to-drag ratio has a lift to drag 423 00:37:51,870 --> 00:37:56,520 ratio of about 4 I thought if I could go ahead and put some wings on the 424 00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:02,700 helicopter and streamlined a helicopter I could double triple even quadruple the 425 00:38:02,700 --> 00:38:08,790 lift-to-drag ratio that would give me 2 3 or 4 times as long of a range secondly 426 00:38:08,790 --> 00:38:13,650 I knew that the energy density of batteries from research I did was 427 00:38:13,650 --> 00:38:19,470 increasing 7 to 10% every year and and and that has been true ever since then 428 00:38:19,470 --> 00:38:23,010 because all with all this interest in electric cars well if something is 429 00:38:23,010 --> 00:38:27,780 increasing 7 to 10 percent a year let's do 10 percent that's easy that means 430 00:38:27,780 --> 00:38:32,940 every 7 years it has double the power so I said Wow in the 7 year time period 431 00:38:32,940 --> 00:38:38,820 what now is 15 minutes will be 30 minutes but by improving the 432 00:38:38,820 --> 00:38:43,560 lift to drag ratio that will be an hour hour and a half or two hours I now have 433 00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:49,190 an electric help helicopter that has the same range as a gas-filled helicopter 434 00:38:49,190 --> 00:38:56,490 okay yeah just the last part of it so how did you get to fly in a day I 435 00:38:56,490 --> 00:39:00,780 thought he said you flew around the world with it 436 00:39:00,780 --> 00:39:05,850 though the the gentleman who provided was kind enough to give me the inaugural 437 00:39:05,850 --> 00:39:10,740 Excellence Award an electric aviation Ross Perot jr. flew all the way around 438 00:39:10,740 --> 00:39:16,110 the world in the helicopter oh not your electric it's all my goals it's all my 439 00:39:16,110 --> 00:39:22,800 goals that's my goal for the 2020s and the tool who happens to be our chief 440 00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:28,920 economist right thank you so much dr. Roth let your your story is actually 441 00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:32,370 super inspirational and I think it's been it's been wonderful to hear about 442 00:39:32,370 --> 00:39:37,110 it so economists always talk about scarce resources and one of the one of 443 00:39:37,110 --> 00:39:41,520 the scarcest resources is time and I'm amazed at how much you've been able to 444 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:46,380 accomplish in the end every day only has 24 hours but somehow you've squeezed an 445 00:39:46,380 --> 00:39:49,890 amazing productivity and amazing accomplishments out of these out of each 446 00:39:49,890 --> 00:39:54,750 of these days do you have any you know insights you could pass so I'm trying to 447 00:39:54,750 --> 00:39:59,610 squeeze some you know productivity out of my time do you have any insights that 448 00:39:59,610 --> 00:40:04,440 you could pass on yes I thank you for the compliment I really appreciate it I 449 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:10,620 think the main reason I've been able to accomplish these things is that I've 450 00:40:10,620 --> 00:40:16,920 been able to inspire super good people to join me and thereby have a huge 451 00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:24,210 leverage effect on what I'm doing for example the picture that was shown in 452 00:40:24,210 --> 00:40:32,340 the video of my electric helicopter team everybody wants to make a difference in 453 00:40:32,340 --> 00:40:36,810 the world and I believe that all of us do make a difference in the world so 454 00:40:36,810 --> 00:40:43,170 these guys who are aerodynamicists and electrical aeronautical engineers they 455 00:40:43,170 --> 00:40:48,060 look back in the 1910s and 20s and say wow those were the glory days of 456 00:40:48,060 --> 00:40:52,140 aviation that's when there were a hundred airplane companies and 457 00:40:52,140 --> 00:40:55,620 people were all coming up with new things and I would save them and say 458 00:40:55,620 --> 00:41:01,230 guys we have a chance to reinvent aviation already aviation is accounting 459 00:41:01,230 --> 00:41:06,870 for about 5% of Globen carbon footprint it's going to end up with around 10% all 460 00:41:06,870 --> 00:41:10,830 you have to do is read the paper I mean the Pope thinks we should calm down the 461 00:41:10,830 --> 00:41:13,740 world temperature everybody thinks we should calm down the world's temperature 462 00:41:13,740 --> 00:41:18,570 so there is definitely going to be a huge market for green energy charged 463 00:41:18,570 --> 00:41:23,940 battery powered aviation we have an opportunity to change the world 464 00:41:23,940 --> 00:41:27,750 I said the same thing to the building engineers in the civil engineers that 465 00:41:27,750 --> 00:41:33,570 work on our headquarters up in Silver Spring for the people that do the organ 466 00:41:33,570 --> 00:41:39,750 manufacturing here's just a couple of quick shots on the that's a 3d printed 467 00:41:39,750 --> 00:41:48,900 organ that is grown from collagen inside the tobacco plant 468 00:41:48,900 --> 00:41:52,890 I'm going to move ahead to the next slide here the computers on this side I 469 00:41:52,890 --> 00:41:58,830 just pointed pointed yep right here okay sorry yep so there you see I'll meet my 470 00:41:58,830 --> 00:42:04,230 team holding this 3d printed lung you can see the joy in those guys faces 471 00:42:04,230 --> 00:42:09,270 can't you it's they're excited because who does not want to be able to go home 472 00:42:09,270 --> 00:42:13,140 and say to their friends and family they're working to make sure that nobody 473 00:42:13,140 --> 00:42:17,820 again ever dies on the organ transplant list I mean it's just an intrinsically 474 00:42:17,820 --> 00:42:24,150 good thing to do and um and and then to say okay let's work together to have a 475 00:42:24,150 --> 00:42:29,460 slice by slice step by step way to achieve it so these people are motivated 476 00:42:29,460 --> 00:42:35,100 the helicopter folks are motivated here I'm at a place across the street from 477 00:42:35,100 --> 00:42:40,710 Camus Texas A&M University which is by the way the place that really invented 478 00:42:40,710 --> 00:42:45,600 the black light for growing things internally there we are growing Khan 479 00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:50,910 tobacco plants whose DNA has been modified to express human collagen and 480 00:42:50,910 --> 00:42:57,600 extremely expensive by the gram compound to buy right now we will end up collagen 481 00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:03,060 however is the most abundant protein that your body produces all the DNA in 482 00:43:03,060 --> 00:43:07,620 your body is like an amazing Factory number one protein that it pumps out as 483 00:43:07,620 --> 00:43:14,160 collagen so we present we now have made tobacco plants that caused so much lung 484 00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:19,830 disease B our collagen power plant so we produced a collagen in the leaves of the 485 00:43:19,830 --> 00:43:25,020 tobacco plant digest a tobacco plant and then use the collagen we extract from 486 00:43:25,020 --> 00:43:30,870 the digest to 3d print a lung that can be then implanted into a person covered 487 00:43:30,870 --> 00:43:35,370 with the person's own stem cells for which they will not require me a 488 00:43:35,370 --> 00:43:40,380 suppression so when you tell people about you know these very accessible but 489 00:43:40,380 --> 00:43:45,600 world-changing events they're willing to work night and day so the reason that I 490 00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:50,460 can you know I don't want to say I work 9:00 to 5:00 but but the reason I don't 491 00:43:50,460 --> 00:43:55,470 have to work 24 hours a day is because I got a thousand other super jazz super 492 00:43:55,470 --> 00:44:00,330 motivated people working around the clock you know on these awesome 493 00:44:00,330 --> 00:44:05,550 inspiring dreams the way to achieve that is you have to give somebody a really 494 00:44:05,550 --> 00:44:09,330 good goal to work for and make it something that they can accomplish 495 00:44:09,330 --> 00:44:15,240 within a human accessible timeframe which in my experience is five to ten 496 00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:18,990 years if people have a goal that they can really see that they can change the 497 00:44:18,990 --> 00:44:24,860 world in five to ten years they'll put their all into it thank you thank you 498 00:44:24,860 --> 00:44:29,819 sir that my name is Steve and I know you're 499 00:44:29,819 --> 00:44:34,649 good friends with Dean Kaman and your company United therapeutics is a part of 500 00:44:34,649 --> 00:44:38,130 the advanced regenerative manufacturing Institute yes so could you kind of 501 00:44:38,130 --> 00:44:41,609 explain the role that your company plays on that and what you see coming out of 502 00:44:41,609 --> 00:44:46,259 that Institute because to me it sounds like it's a pretty exciting space for 503 00:44:46,259 --> 00:44:52,679 medicine as we go into the future yes it is so first of all one of those pictures 504 00:44:52,679 --> 00:44:57,299 you saw is actually from Army the advanced regenerative medicine Institute 505 00:44:57,299 --> 00:45:03,239 the one of the 3d printed collagen scaffolds lung those are printed up 506 00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:08,189 there in Manchester New Hampshire in a completely redesigned milliard building 507 00:45:08,189 --> 00:45:16,380 Dina and I share the passion to bring manufacturing back to America and you 508 00:45:16,380 --> 00:45:22,559 know at one point in time Manchester New Hampshire was like what a hundred years 509 00:45:22,559 --> 00:45:27,179 previously Manchester England was like they worked chopped of the world and 510 00:45:27,179 --> 00:45:30,569 there were literally thousands of people that would go into those milliards and 511 00:45:30,569 --> 00:45:35,609 make fabrics well that's you know long ago been commoditized and everything but 512 00:45:35,609 --> 00:45:40,619 what our vision is is to bring manufacturing of biology things that 513 00:45:40,619 --> 00:45:45,059 keep people alive and healthy back to Manchester so one of the things we're 514 00:45:45,059 --> 00:45:51,779 doing there is the 3d printed organs in partnership with 3d systems and the 515 00:45:51,779 --> 00:45:57,239 inventor of the 3d printer chuck hall who no doubt has numerous patents in 516 00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,899 this Patent and Trademark Office and would be an awesome speaker for a 517 00:46:00,899 --> 00:46:03,319 program 518 00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:08,630 plus he all relative okay okay yeah you said yet he's just a super great guy 519 00:46:08,630 --> 00:46:14,480 he's also a pilot and another thing we're doing there is Dean Dean pulled 520 00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:19,490 off one of the most amazing inventions in my opinion in medical device history 521 00:46:19,490 --> 00:46:24,560 he for a hundred years all infusion pumps have worked exactly 522 00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,880 the same and there are a screw driven pump that basically creates pressure and 523 00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:35,210 pushes pushes a fluid through a pipe through a tube he invented a way and I 524 00:46:35,210 --> 00:46:41,330 think this is so elegant and brilliant to use sound waves going through a fluid 525 00:46:41,330 --> 00:46:46,010 that ever the ever faster rate at which a sound wave will go through an 526 00:46:46,010 --> 00:46:51,080 ever-diminishing amount of fluid to determine through through a mathematical 527 00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:56,720 formula how much fluid is left in that reservoir and therefore at what and 528 00:46:56,720 --> 00:47:00,950 therefore measure and make adjustments for how much fluid goes out of it using 529 00:47:00,950 --> 00:47:05,780 only a night no wire that just bends to allow the fluid to pass into the 530 00:47:05,780 --> 00:47:10,700 catheter so his new pump which I'm sure it's like many patents file here on it 531 00:47:10,700 --> 00:47:15,620 because Dean's got hundreds of patents that new pump which is called the unity 532 00:47:15,620 --> 00:47:21,350 pump has no moving parts I call it like the Tesla of pumps it's it's such an 533 00:47:21,350 --> 00:47:26,270 elegant device so we at United therapeutics are manufacturing that up 534 00:47:26,270 --> 00:47:31,100 there in Manchester New Hampshire and that will be able to be used for all 535 00:47:31,100 --> 00:47:34,970 type of regenerative medicine that are people if they have kind of like a 536 00:47:34,970 --> 00:47:39,680 neurological condition Parkinson's or something like that or any other type of 537 00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:44,270 medical condition that needs our regenerating of their body's fluids that 538 00:47:44,270 --> 00:47:50,390 regenerative therapeutic can be put into this pump with no moving parts and 539 00:47:50,390 --> 00:47:55,460 gradually sent into the body so there's now a manufacturing line for those unity 540 00:47:55,460 --> 00:48:00,470 pumps up there in Manchester New Hampshire by the way we're working on 541 00:48:00,470 --> 00:48:03,980 having Dean came in here as the next speaker 542 00:48:03,980 --> 00:48:09,560 early early in 2020 so just in a short while some people ask me who do I look 543 00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:16,369 up to as as a role model and I look up to Dean Kaman and if you think that 544 00:48:16,369 --> 00:48:21,170 how I do all these things I would say what I do is is 10% of what Dean does 545 00:48:21,170 --> 00:48:25,609 because he does all of these kind of things that we're talking about he 546 00:48:25,609 --> 00:48:28,819 invented the turbine and Strom helicopter I won't go through his whole 547 00:48:28,819 --> 00:48:34,269 things he's already done but on top of that he has organized a global 548 00:48:34,269 --> 00:48:39,079 organization nonprofit organization called FIRST Robotics for inspiration 549 00:48:39,079 --> 00:48:44,950 and recognition and science and technology and just convened in Dubai 550 00:48:44,950 --> 00:48:50,660 more nations then are at the regular Olympics Aidan Olympics of junior high 551 00:48:50,660 --> 00:48:59,299 and high school kids from 191 countries to compete in building a robotic robots 552 00:48:59,299 --> 00:49:03,799 that compete against each other in sports and that the finals attended by 553 00:49:03,799 --> 00:49:08,660 the highest leader of Dubai for after God's exact name it turned out the 554 00:49:08,660 --> 00:49:15,049 finalists were two teams one team had the Israelis on the team the other team 555 00:49:15,049 --> 00:49:22,099 had a Syrian refugee group on the team and at the end these two teams got all 556 00:49:22,099 --> 00:49:25,880 the way up to the finals jumped over the rope and we're all hugging each other 557 00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:30,230 right and Dubai I mean and that's a kind of miracle that I think only Dean came 558 00:49:30,230 --> 00:49:32,980 and can make happen 559 00:49:33,700 --> 00:49:39,290 thank you for your very inspiring stories my question is like how did you 560 00:49:39,290 --> 00:49:42,890 secure funding the first time around when you had no prior business 561 00:49:42,890 --> 00:49:52,550 experience yes it was a very very difficult and I was turned away by more 562 00:49:52,550 --> 00:49:59,300 than 90% of all of the all of the investors that I approached but I I did 563 00:49:59,300 --> 00:50:03,380 learn I think you know I tell people who want to go to the MBA school I learned 564 00:50:03,380 --> 00:50:08,750 really one good thing out of out of MBA school in my opinion I'm grateful to 565 00:50:08,750 --> 00:50:16,760 UCLA for that but but but that was really basically just comes down to how 566 00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:23,680 to calculate a net present value of something and I learned very well how to 567 00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:30,950 how to show that a possible future stream of things was worth something 568 00:50:30,950 --> 00:50:36,980 real today and it sounds almost like magic okay how do you show that a 569 00:50:36,980 --> 00:50:43,280 possible future stream of things is is worth something real today but you do 570 00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:49,040 that by first of all saying well what would it be worth if you had say 10 571 00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:54,859 million subscribers to a satellite radio system well they would pay 10 dollars a 572 00:50:54,859 --> 00:51:01,130 month so you know 10 million times you know $10 a month 10 million dollars a 573 00:51:01,130 --> 00:51:05,720 month that's that's worth something well what are the probabilities of that 574 00:51:05,720 --> 00:51:10,940 occurring well if you're a skeptic you may say it's only a 10% probability of 575 00:51:10,940 --> 00:51:14,569 occurring okay but that's still worth something okay that's still worth 576 00:51:14,569 --> 00:51:18,800 something even if it's only 10% it's still worth something and you do that 577 00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:24,950 for every year year ten year nine year eight year 7 and and then you have to 578 00:51:24,950 --> 00:51:30,710 count in how much it costs to create that reality and now you don't have to 579 00:51:30,710 --> 00:51:34,640 pay all of that money on day one so even though you have to pay that money in 580 00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:39,800 year two year three or four that money in the year four is not really the same 581 00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:44,150 amount as the money in year one because it's in the future so these things 582 00:51:44,150 --> 00:51:47,680 balance and what you learn to do in the in a and 583 00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:53,050 I like it at Anderson School of Management at UCLA you learn to I would 584 00:51:53,050 --> 00:51:59,080 say keep tweaking those numbers until the present value the year zero number 585 00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:03,400 is a positive number and I don't mean tweaking those numbers in an unfair way 586 00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:08,050 I mean tweaking it in in a fair way like if the probabilities are too low then 587 00:52:08,050 --> 00:52:11,920 you need to do some things to increase the probability maybe you need to get a 588 00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,970 patent granted because that would increase the probability that you 589 00:52:15,970 --> 00:52:20,650 wouldn't be undercut by a competitor or maybe in my case what I did is I did an 590 00:52:20,650 --> 00:52:26,440 actual test I put a transmitter on top of the Gannett usatoday building and I 591 00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:30,850 transmitted a signal at the equivalent power flux density to a car driving 592 00:52:30,850 --> 00:52:34,480 through Rock Creek Park because the people at the FCC thought it was 593 00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,920 impossible to transmit my signal through leaves and I had to show them that it 594 00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:42,310 was possible so you do things like this that's what I mean by tweak the 595 00:52:42,310 --> 00:52:47,230 probabilities finally you get the thing is worth on day zero whatever the number 596 00:52:47,230 --> 00:52:50,200 is you can call it you know ten million dollars fifty million doesn't really 597 00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:54,520 matter with the number then you go to the investor and you say I will give you 598 00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:58,690 this thing that's worth whatever the number is ten million five pound I'll 599 00:52:58,690 --> 00:53:07,330 give it to you for half the price all I need is the price and so what that means 600 00:53:07,330 --> 00:53:11,920 is like you've given half your company you know to that investor but now you 601 00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:16,660 got the five million or the 50 million and you can start building out your your 602 00:53:16,660 --> 00:53:22,090 technology and that's called series a round and you just you know repeat that 603 00:53:22,090 --> 00:53:26,920 repeat if you move along and that's exactly how I did it and ninety percent 604 00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:32,440 of the people will tell you no I think your numbers are are optimistic and I 605 00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:35,080 think the numbers actually negative right now so I'm not going to give you 606 00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:40,480 I'll give you half of a negative number but that's nothing but finally if you 607 00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:44,740 don't give up you will run into a believer you will run into a believer if 608 00:53:44,740 --> 00:53:48,280 you don't give up I think the story that we hear from you and from many other 609 00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,990 people the key is never give up never give up one final question 610 00:53:52,990 --> 00:53:56,560 Mary Denison who is our Commissioner for trademarks oh great 611 00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,829 and the main reason I asked the trademark 612 00:53:58,829 --> 00:54:03,749 question in fear of the commissioner for trade lies well I want to start off by 613 00:54:03,749 --> 00:54:07,169 saying thank you for saying the Patent and Trademark Office throughout your 614 00:54:07,169 --> 00:54:10,829 comments and not calling it the patent and trade office or just the patent 615 00:54:10,829 --> 00:54:15,869 office so I'm very grateful to you for acknowledging that we exist because I 616 00:54:15,869 --> 00:54:21,059 can't tell you how many speakers don't do that so thank you for that but my 617 00:54:21,059 --> 00:54:24,239 question has nothing to do with trademarks um I have a friend that needs 618 00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:30,390 a heart transplant but she's too old and her mother died at 107 and so she's 79 619 00:54:30,390 --> 00:54:34,919 she thinks she could go to 170 has this heart problem so I'm wondering if you're 620 00:54:34,919 --> 00:54:40,890 I know that you're dealing with rejections and are you targeting people 621 00:54:40,890 --> 00:54:45,119 are you hoping that this will be available to everybody at some point and 622 00:54:45,119 --> 00:54:50,519 you would never want to have one from a person it would totally replace that I'm 623 00:54:50,519 --> 00:54:55,650 just kind of wondering what your ambition is there yes it's a it's a 624 00:54:55,650 --> 00:54:59,999 great question my my view is to create an unlimited supply of transplantable 625 00:54:59,999 --> 00:55:05,999 organs and to leave it up to the doctors best judgment which particular type of 626 00:55:05,999 --> 00:55:11,789 transplantable organs any particular patient would have because organs that 627 00:55:11,789 --> 00:55:19,890 are anatomical donations are especially scarce there are a whole detailed set of 628 00:55:19,890 --> 00:55:27,959 rules for who would get these organs and there is it is very difficult for an 629 00:55:27,959 --> 00:55:34,529 older person to get a heart transplant because people's logic is that there are 630 00:55:34,529 --> 00:55:42,029 the heart transplant would statistically live exist longer in a 40 or 45 year old 631 00:55:42,029 --> 00:55:51,539 person but you know the old saying that there are three types of liars 632 00:55:51,539 --> 00:55:56,180 there's Liars there's damn liars and they're statisticians 633 00:55:56,180 --> 00:56:02,270 so uh so uh I'm on I'm on her side and and I'm voting that she's going to go to 634 00:56:02,270 --> 00:56:08,810 107 now on the manufactured lungs that you see there the expert lung transplant 635 00:56:08,810 --> 00:56:14,870 surgeons have advised us that the first persons to get these lungs would be 636 00:56:14,870 --> 00:56:19,970 people who have lung cancer of which there are over a quarter million people 637 00:56:19,970 --> 00:56:24,440 a year in America in America alone who died of lung cancer that's a lot of 638 00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:30,080 people and and you know many people kind of they can't help themselves say well 639 00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:35,270 it's because they smoked personally as a medical ethicist I don't think that's 640 00:56:35,270 --> 00:56:40,460 either here and they're there but I do want to point out that 25,000 people die 641 00:56:40,460 --> 00:56:45,200 a year of lung cancer we've never smoked at all and radon exposure is the 642 00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:50,210 principal cause of that and you know and so you just be perfectly didn't do 643 00:56:50,210 --> 00:56:53,720 anything you just happen to live in a house to hell a lot of radon and you got 644 00:56:53,720 --> 00:56:57,680 lung cancer so anyway that's a that's a sidebar there but they've said that 645 00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:01,760 because lung cancer patients are not allowed on the organ transplant list 646 00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:06,770 the first Pierson's to get our manufactured lungs would be lung cancer 647 00:57:06,770 --> 00:57:11,810 patients who the lung and the cancer not yet metastasized and that they could get 648 00:57:11,810 --> 00:57:16,430 it and then the persons who would first get our manufactured hearts would be the 649 00:57:16,430 --> 00:57:20,360 older patients the patients in their seventh and eighth and ninth decade and 650 00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:26,120 I love that because my my catch phrase when people when why one of the P 651 00:57:26,120 --> 00:57:28,910 reasons I say that I want to make an unlimited supply of transplantable 652 00:57:28,910 --> 00:57:37,070 organs is like old people are people - well we could go on forever among many 653 00:57:37,070 --> 00:57:41,030 other things that you're doing my understanding is that your company is 654 00:57:41,030 --> 00:57:46,040 the largest manufacturer of genetically engineered pigs yes you're also working 655 00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:51,520 on artificial intelligence technologies primarily when it comes to cognitive 656 00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:56,810 applications for Alzheimer's patients and alike there's we could go on forever 657 00:57:56,810 --> 00:58:08,240 here but your last answer with respect to an unlimited supply of organs leads 658 00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,930 me to think a would would people just live forever but 659 00:58:11,930 --> 00:58:19,460 I want to leave for today with a thought from you what do you think the world 660 00:58:19,460 --> 00:58:24,410 will look like let's say 50 years from now or let's go even a bit longer let's 661 00:58:24,410 --> 00:58:29,450 say in the year 2100 and are we all still gonna be here 662 00:58:29,450 --> 00:58:38,000 I think the the answer to the second part of your question is it all depends 663 00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:44,780 upon what decisions we all make in during the 2020s this is going to be one 664 00:58:44,780 --> 00:58:48,140 of the most important decades in human history 665 00:58:48,140 --> 00:58:57,200 there are no shortage of threats to to life on earth probably the one that I 666 00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:05,830 myself worried the most about is goes under the rubric of do-it-yourself 667 00:59:05,830 --> 00:59:14,020 biotech it's of you know it's it's it's ever more easy for anybody to create a 668 00:59:14,020 --> 00:59:21,500 pathogen in the bioterror type of sense so this is a very difficult type of 669 00:59:21,500 --> 00:59:26,540 problem to control we we are doing I think a pretty good job 670 00:59:26,540 --> 00:59:31,370 no not perfect with nuclear proliferation but there there's many 671 00:59:31,370 --> 00:59:36,040 ways to measure radiation and it's it's harder to hide like nuclear weapons 672 00:59:36,040 --> 00:59:42,320 bioterror is a much more difficult thing to to monitor so we have a lot of 673 00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:47,780 threats going forward not to not to mention you know global warming and 674 00:59:47,780 --> 00:59:54,770 everything else so the decisions that we make as a people during the 2020s will 675 00:59:54,770 --> 01:00:02,030 dictate whether it will be a good world for everybody in 2100 a good world for 676 01:00:02,030 --> 01:00:07,640 just some people in 2100 or kind of you know a sad in and negative place for 677 01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:13,130 most people I think you know no no day is guaranteed to anybody so what's most 678 01:00:13,130 --> 01:00:21,170 important is what you do each and every day and my my favorite phrase that I 679 01:00:21,170 --> 01:00:27,380 from the religious community is that the good Lord put two eyes in front of us 680 01:00:27,380 --> 01:00:31,849 and no eyes behind us because we shouldn't worry about what's already 681 01:00:31,849 --> 01:00:37,039 happened just focus on what's in front of us focus on today and tomorrow well 682 01:00:37,039 --> 01:00:40,640 thank you very much with everybody join me in thanking dr. 683 01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:46,670 Ross Blatt for being here 684 01:00:58,150 --> 01:01:04,280 and for being such a great friend of the US Patent and Trademark Office and 685 01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:11,630 keeping our examiner's busy in all our units and and in trademark areas I want 686 01:01:11,630 --> 01:01:16,339 to give you a USPTO pin which I will put here where you put it 687 01:01:16,339 --> 01:01:22,780 anyway okay wherever the director puts it it's the right place you know what 688 01:01:22,780 --> 01:01:27,230 this is a you know what I'm not gonna put it because your coat is probably a 689 01:01:27,230 --> 01:01:32,660 bullet proof and I'll just give it to you and please always keep coming 690 01:01:32,660 --> 01:01:40,929 back I will thank you very much!