2024 - January
Come to the next San Diego Inventors Forum and bring a friend or colleague!
Our December event took place at:
at THE MAKETORY
9431 Dowdy Drive / Suite 2 / San Diego 92126
Doors open at 5:30 and meeting begins at 6:00
Our December meeting had fewer attendees than November because of the holidays, but the good news is that some people are becoming regular attendees. We heard that some new attendees had trouble finding the building because the Maketory doesn’t have a lit-up sign. The Maketory shares a building with a company named Reprohaus that has a big lit-up sign on top of the right side of the building.
Every attendee had an opportunity to share their invention milestones and successes in the “What’s New” portion of our meeting. Inventors also made requests of what help or advice they needed to move forward with their product in the “What’s Needed” section of our meeting.
It was inspiring to hear the success of Chris Baker of OnTarget Design. Chris has been a long-time member of SDIF. He is an experienced design engineer and machinist, and his company takes inventions and brings them to life. His company is one of the leading product development companies in the nation and has clients around the globe. He is a co-inventor on about 80 patents, and the sole inventor on another 20. He shared the success of his latest invention, First Step Automation Applications, which is being integrated into Fanuc robotic systems.
The January meeting will feature the successes of a couple of long-time inventors that hold many patents in our Inventor Spotlight section. We would love to hear about your successes at a future meeting and are accepting submissions for those of you who would like to participate in an Inventor Spotlight for a future meeting.
SDIF’s original funder, Greg Wawrzyniak, summarized his four pros of inventing for new attendees and will continue to explain this topic at future meetings.
For new attendees, SDIF board member, Michele Nash-Hoff, also gave a brief description of the disastrous effect on inventors’ patent rights created by the America Invents Act of 2011, especially by the creation of the Patent Trial and Review Board (PTAB) that has been invalidating up to 84% of patents in the past couple of years. She briefly described the work of US Inventors to restore patent rights since Paul Morinville founded the organization in 2014. US Inventor is the only organization representing small inventors, businesses, and startups to enact change that supports these groups, and it has grown to about 87,000 members over the past couple of years. Please support the Inventor’s Rights Resolution, which you can sign here.
S. 2140: Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2023 (PERA) introduced by Senators Thomas Tillis (R-NC) and Christopher Coons (D-DE) on 6/22/2023 was discussed in my article “Inventor Rights Still Being Threatened.”
S. 2220: PREVAIL Act was introduced on Jul 10, 2023 by Senator Christopher Coons (D-DE) – “A bill to amend title 35, United States Code, to invest in inventors in the United States, maintain the United States as the leading innovation economy in the world, and protect the property rights of the inventors that grow the economy of the United States, and for other purposes.”
A tour of the Maketory will be provided to first time attendees so they can see what facilities and equipment are available to help them with their product development. The Maketory offers private office suites, private work studios, on-site storage for materials and supplies, free Wi-Fi, and free parking. The ground floor of the facility contains a wood shop, metal shop, welding area, prototype/assembly area, 34 private work studios, and a blacksmith shop outside the back of the building. The second floor has both a small and large conference room, an open space for meetings or training sessions, and private offices.
2023 Board Members and Committee Members
Greg Wawrzyniak: President <inventionaccelerator@gmail.com>
Michele Nash-Hoff: Secretary and Outreach Advocate <michelenh@frontier.com>
Tapio Vahamaki: Treasurer <tapio@tapio.re>
Grazyna Krajewska: PR Marketing - Website gk@amberdot.com