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Invention Alley

Invention review services by Ron Vigneri are offered. His experience and counsel have been utilized by many inventors over the past three decades. His background in numerous technologies and his history in bringing inventions to market is extensive. Companies based upon certain of his patents have been created, operationally successful, profitable, and often sold at a significant premium.

Ron has been "burned" enough by partners and third parties to be able to recognize and instruct against the many problems and threats facing an inventor and his invention. The system is stacked against the small inventor, particularly the US patent system. He knows what to do within the system and what to avoid. He has counseled on pursuing patents or keeping the invention a trade secret and proprietary.

Basically, the US patent system promises a monopoly on your invention by awarding a patent, but you have to pursue any infringement yourself. The cost of trying to protect your patents is usually costly and futile. That is the way the existing legal system likes it to be. Even if you win a case, the technology usually continues to be infringed by another party or parties. The more valuable the invention, the more infringers, and the big money infringers have that advantage.

The money an inventor would spend on obtaining a patent and/or infringement litigation is better applied to trying to market the invention while keeping it company proprietary AFTER filing a patent application including internationally. Trade secrets hold far more security than trying to depend on protection from the patent courts, especially in foreign companies. Plus, if you are first to market and establish a foothold in the public space with your named invention, you will protect yourself better than anyone else can.

A simple but legally proper non-use and non-disclosure form (NUND) is critical to all inventors, but particularly small business entities. Vetechnet has available a simple, time-tested version to protect your idea or invention. The fact of having to proceed with a NUND is always a complicating factor because it is natural for another party to resist agreeing to and signing any document with legal ramifications. That is why a simple, but effective NUND form is important.

Ron Vigneri Patent History

Laser Gyro 1963-69 US 3535040 Assigned to Bendix Corporation
Guidance for Boeing 757, 767, 777, 787 aircraft plus other aircraft, misslies, rockets, ships, weapon systems, and other applications.
Honeywell awarded a plaque to Ron after delivery of the 250,000 unit in 2005. He would have rathered $1 per unit. Ron received a $25 check from Bendix Corp. as a patent award and promptly quit, joined another company and was contracted there to continue to develop the Laser Gyro for Bendix, NASA, and the Army Missile Command.

Laser Printer 1970-73 US 3751587 Assigned to Saxon Corporation by Holobeam Inc.
Built with a mode-locked neodymium yttrium alumin garnet (Nd:YAG) laser requiring water cooling capable of writing 10,000 dots/inch (dpi) and 1,000 lines per second. The first use of lasers to print copies some 20 years before an industry developed for PC laser printers. This technology was so far ahead of its time that it is hard to believe, but there were no small semiconductor lasers or PCs back then to create a market.

Thermox Process 1981-85 US 4423780 and US 4456069
Oil well secondary recovery and treatment systems.
Technology for producing more US oil & gas from existing and new wells. 25 years too soon! The present natural gas drilling boom should bring back this technology, especially now that the patents have expired. The hydrogen peroxide technology is still applicable in low concentration downhole application with the modern horizontal drilling technique.

CleanOX Process 1991-99 US 5286141 and 5520483
Groundwater remediation system using hydrogen peroxide chemical reactions. The patents created a whole international industry labelled "ISCO" for in-situ chemical oxidation system. These patents have been infringed upon worldwide. Numerous international patents have also been granted over the years (some in his name without any consent). The CleanOX assets (patents) were sold to ManTech International in 1998.

Note: Numerous foreign patents related to the above are not listed.

Company Proprietary Inventions (not patented)

1965 Electronic Tachometer - Bendix Corporation
1974 Computerized Night Vision System Production Line (CATS) - North American Philips Corp.
1978 Computerized Tennis Match Charting System - USPTA
1979-81 Monopropellent Rocket Engines - Rocket Man, Inc.
1984 Remote Oil Field Operating System (ROFOS) - Depco Corp.
1985 Material Carrier Device - RockHopper Inc.
1991 Special Purpose Fire Fighting Equipment (SPUFF) - Recotech Inc.
1991 PureOX High Purity Tank w/Manifold - Spartanburg Steel Products Inc.
1993 Trembucker Guitar Pickup - Seymour Duncan Inc
1999 Swimming Pool Cooler - Kool Pool Inc.
2014 Tennis Racquet Pro Vibration Dampeners