Are patents worth cost? | The Wichita Eagle

The lone inventor tinkering in his basement is a stereotype — but it's also a reality. Wichita has a rich tradition of such tinkerers because of its manufacturing heritage. There were 70 patents granted in 2010 to date to Wichita inventors or Wichita companies.

Most patents are sought by big companies, particularly LSI's data storage design facility and the Coleman Co., which must innovate continuously to stay ahead of competitors.

But there are plenty of tinkerers who file on their own behalf or for their small companies.

Just this year, one man received a patent on a new method for determining prime numbers, for use in encryption and decryption. Another, who wrote in his application that he had framed houses for more than 20 years, received a patent incorporating a clamp with a chalk line so that marking a straight line on plywood requires only one person.

Wichita patent attorney Bob Blinn of Erickson, Kernell, Derusseau & Kleypas, sees people come in all the time with ideas, but he advises some not to seek a patent.

A patent is most valuable to someone who is actually prepared to make the item commercially, he said. Filing a patent on an invention because it's a neat idea in the hopes that somebody will license it is probably wishful thinking — and expensive.

Patent applications can run from less than $5,000 to more than $10,000 depending on the complexity of the search and documentation required. Plus, it's up to patent holders to defend their patents legally if they discover a violation.

Despite the cost and three- or four-year lag-time, some Wichita entrepreneurs have followed their creativity.

Kasey Beltz

Kasey Beltz laughs that he was fired three times by FedEx before it finally stuck. That was in 2002 and he was getting his side business off the ground.

Today, he is part owner and the guy who runs B&T Industries, which makes metal supports, called monopods and bipods, for sniper rifles.

He said about 60 percent of his business is to military and police.

An avid hunter and gun hobbyist, he was prairie dog hunting with a friend in the late 1990s. The friend complained about the beanbag support he was using for his rifle. That got Beltz thinking about making something better.

"To me, it seemed like a natural step," he said. "I'm blessed to live in America where one has the ability to chase that opportunity, to make something better than a beanbag."

Monopods, a folding stand to support a rifle butt when the shooter is lying flat, already existed. But he worked in his basement and came with something new enough that he got a patent on it.

He continued tinkering and has since learned how to use a computer design program, which allows him to explore his ideas more quickly.

In 2008, he began selling a bipod, which supports the barrel. He now has four patents and several applications under review.

His business has grown every year, doubling in 2009 and is on track to grow another 40 percent this year. It supports him and three employees.

To Beltz, who operates in a world where design differentiation is everything, a patent is incredibly important. He runs into people all the time who tell him they had thought up the same designs but never acted on them.

"You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't pursue it it's no idea at all," he said.

Eric Carroll

Eric Carroll, a fabricator of custom metalwork for architects, decided one day to grow a saguaro cactus in Kansas.

His father-in-law, Richard Turner, told him that he would be able to build one before he could grow one. So he did.

It took about nine months of messing around in his spare time, but he created a full-sized saguaro cactus out of steel. He built a few more, and in 2003 he and Turner took them to a home and garden show in Anaheim, Calif., where they logged plenty of sales and were discovered by "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." A business was born.

Today, Carroll runs the manufacturing side of Desert Steel Corp. in Newton, while Turner focuses on the sales. It has six employees, plus Carroll and Turner. Sales are down from 2008, but many of their landscaping architecture customers are now beginning to resurface.

Carroll continues to innovate. He has four patents to his name on some of the designs and components needed to make the steel saguaro, golden barrel, fish hook barrel and prickly pear cacti and agave plants. The company even makes a full-size palm tree.

"If I had the money, I'd go for 40 more," he said.

He understands that patents have limits. His competitors may not be subject to U.S. law, he said, or may simply flood the market and fight for as long as it takes to make it worth their while.

Even so, he said, a patent does help.

"It's to give us a little protection," he said, "so it's not quite as easy to get squashed by the big guys."