Patently Strategic - Patent Strategy for Startups
Patently Strategic - Patent Strategy for Startups
James Howard and the Black Inventors Hall of Fame
Our interview with James Howard, Founder and Executive Director of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame.
James Howard is a college professor, design historian, entrepreneur, industrial designer, inventor, filmmaker, and restauranteur. He brings over 25 years of experience as a design professor and has authored a course on Design Thinking and Design History that explores the impact of design on society. As an accomplished Industrial Design educator and entrepreneur, Howard has lectured on the experience of Black American inventors. Howard himself is an extraordinary inventor with 20 patents, several of which we discuss, cover innovations that save people's lives daily.
James' life work is now culminating in his mission of bringing a broad and detailed awareness to the important work of African American inventors, artists, and innovators who have inspired and forged ahead against tremendous odds and adversity. In creating the Black Inventors Hall of Fame, James hopes to have a place where kids of all ages and persuasions can go and be inspired to become the next generation of scientists, engineers, doctors, and inventors. Because like the great inventor Lonnie Johnson says, “What they see, they will be.”
** Mossoff Minute **
In this month's Mossoff Minute, Professor Adam Mossoff discusses how there’s a pirate living in your Apple Watch and why the media’s coverage of Apple’s predatory infringement of Masimo's patents is missing the mark.
** Discussed Links **
⦿ Black Inventors Hall of Fame
⦿ BIGG documentary: The Gathering
⦿ Tech Boy Book
⦿ Why Patents Exist
⦿ Inventor Stories Vol. 1
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Thanks for listening!
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Note: The contents of this podcast do not constitute legal advice.
[00:00:00] Josh Sloat: G'day and welcome to the Patently Strategic Podcast where we discuss all things at the intersection of business, technology, and patents. This podcast is a monthly discussion amongst experts in the field of patenting. It's for inventors, founders, and IP professionals alike, established or aspiring. And in today's episode, we're looking at one man's efforts to immortalize the pioneering genius of African American inventors from the past 400 years.
Our special guest today is James Howard, founder and executive director of the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. James Howard is a college professor, design historian, entrepreneur, industrial designer, inventor, filmmaker, and restaurateur. He brings over twenty-five years of experience as a design professor, and has authored a course on design thinking and design history that explores the impact of design on society is an accomplished industrial design educator and entrepreneur.
Howard has lectured on the experience of Black American inventors. Howard himself is an extraordinary inventor with 20 patents, several of which we discuss cover innovations that save people's lives daily. [00:01:00] James Life work is now culminating in his mission of bringing a broad and detailed awareness to the important work of African American inventors, artists, and innovators who have inspired and forged ahead against tremendous odds and adversity in creating the black Inventors Hall of Fame.
James hopes to have a place where kids of all ages and persuasions can go and be inspired to become the next generation of great scientists, engineers, doctors, and inventors. Because like the great inventor Lonnie Johnson says what they see, they will be. James and I cover a wide range of topics, including his origin story is an inventor, and how his inventions are inspiring his grandkids now on their own innovation journey.
The genesis and motivation for the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. What advice he'd give to those newer to inventing his biggest learnings from the greats featured in his black Inventors Got game documentary. What we should be doing to support and inspire today's youth and the next generation of inventors, and especially in honor of Black History Month, we discussed some black inventors whose inventions help shape daily life but [00:02:00] aren't yet household names.
James is working diligently to change that. Now, before jumping in with James, we'd like to take you to the next installment of the Moss Off Minute, a monthly segment that features short conversations with Professor Adam Moss off providing updates and quick takes on movements and patent reform, significant court rulings, innovation policy happenings, and occasional star Wars references.
In this month's minute, Adam discusses how there's a pirate living in your Apple Watch, and why the media's coverage of Apple's predatory infringement of Massimo's patents is missing the mark.
[00:02:29] Adam Mossoff: Now, the Massimo one kind of continues because it continues to be an example of, you know, Predatory infringement with everything that Apple is doing.
It's really frustrating because no one is in all of the news reports on this. Like, oh, Apple's gonna pull their Apple watches from, you know, from Christmas shopping. You don't see actually in the reporting. Apple has been found to infringe and in fact, they engaged in predatory infringement. They've got information on Mossimo's technology from licensing negotiations.
They hired Mossimo engineers. They [00:03:00] are an infringer. They are an adjudged infringer. They challenged the validity of the patents, and they were, and the patents were upheld even at the PTAB they have, having found to engage in invention, theft. And any company, you know, that has a moral compass would then say, all right, we should pay a license.
But instead they continue to fight this, they continue to engage in PR games and their, and then their position is, well, if, and then we're just gonna take our toys and go, well, first of all, you're still gonna pay damages for all of all. You know, no one's talking about this. They still have to pay damages for, even if they pull it from their watches going forward because they stole a patent.
We don't say to someone who like squats, like, oh, you've chosen not to squat anymore, so we're just gonna forgive you for the last 10 years of your squatting. You know, every story should lead off with. Apple was found to have violated a valid patent. It repeatedly challenged the validity of this patent.
Its challenges were rejected it, you know, it was found to be an infringer. It's the baseline for any [00:04:00] discussions going forward about what they're doing. They are not the good, they are not the good actor in the situation. They, they're a, they're a thief. And, um, uh, and yeah. Anyway, so that's kind of one of the things I'm all riled up about.
[00:04:14] Josh Sloat: I always, I always tell people, it's like, okay, when you, when you watch the news and you got the anger person there, and there's that little graphic that goes up along alongside of them, it's like they're, that's, they're telling you the story. They're putting, they're trying to put your brain in a mode right then, and everything that they say is just, that's like creating this ramp into your, into your head.
You know, it's the framing, it's the context, and that's a thousand percent what's going on. All of these apple with all of these Apple stories. Yeah. Right. It's turning, get everybody on the side. Yeah. It's turning Maslow into the bad guy of Oh, they're trying to take, you know, your Apple watch away instead of like Apple's asking for special permission to keep stealing.
[00:04:52] Adam Mossoff: Like, what? Yeah. Yeah. Like, please, you know, please, you know, federal circuit and [00:05:00] uh, and eventually Supreme Court. 'cause they're gonna, they're gonna appeal us all up to Supreme Court, right. Oh, please. You know, order the injunction or the, the exclusion order to be stayed so that we can con keep stealing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because,
[00:05:13] Josh Sloat: you know,
[00:05:13] James Howard: no society cannot live without their Apple watch.
[00:05:16] Adam Mossoff: Yeah. Like, well and not well, and not just their Apple watch like side can't live without their little, you know, blood-octogen technology sensor in the Apple Watch. Right. And that's another thing too, like, you know, they have engaged in such duplicitous, two-faced Argumentation.
Right. Because their first position was, oh, we can't. Design around it. We can't pull this outta the Apple Watch. So the entire Apple Watch goes down if you, if you, if, if you issue the exclusion order. And that's even why they threatened to pull their, their watches, right from, you know, Chris pre-Christmas sale, uh, sales, uh, which again, all P PR because they have $250 billion of, [00:06:00] of cash in the bank.
So it's like, not like they're gonna be hurt by this. Um, now all of a sudden they're like, oh, actually we have submitted a design around for review by this other agency that is apparently that everyone forgot has authority over these topics. Um, you know, it's like, oh, well why didn't you do that in the first place then?
Yeah. Yeah. Well,
[00:06:22] Josh Sloat: just because you can't design a round also is not a roadblock. That's where Giddy license.
[00:06:27] Adam Mossoff: Yeah, well that's exactly, you know, this is, this is, this is Kodak versus, or, or, uh, you know, Polaroid versus Kodak all over again. Right. Because this is exactly what Kodak argued when it was finally found to have been infringer after dragging Polaroid through 12 years of litigation.
And, and Polaroid finally got their judgment, finally got their injunction, and they went, and Kodak went crying to the federal Circuit and said, you know, oh, woe is us. We've employed 80,000 employees. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars. And [00:07:00] the Federal Circuit said, yeah, you chose to infringe. That was the gamble that you took.
Right? Right. So, you know, you don't get to now, you know, use i'll, the economic benefits that you, that have accrued to you and to others as a result of your infringement, as the reason for why you should be allowed to continue to steal, you know, and any other context. You know, if we said someone is. You know, someone is, you know, punching you in the face and they're like, oh, well, you know, I've, I've gotten really strong and I continue to get stronger.
Punching you in the face. It's a good exercise for me. My doctor tells me I have to keep doing exercise, have keep letting me punch you in the face as a result of this. You know, we say this is insane, but, you know, but, but in the patent policy space and in the reporting on this, the people are like, oh yeah, of course.
Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:07:51] Josh Sloat: But, but framing, framing, framing, framing, strip, you know, strip the layers of it back. And it's like if the, if the story was, oh, somebody went into a bank, robbed the [00:08:00] bank, stole a million dollars, built a business empire around that million dollars, employed tons of people and created a whole bunch of products.
Well, I guess we should just, you know, look past the, you robbed a bank for a million dollars. No. Like that's not the, that's not the way the system, the system works. It's not, that's not the society we live in. But for some reason when we wrap it up and package it a little bit different around intellectual property theft, everybody's like, oh yeah, but I gotta have my Apple watch at Christmas.
It's crazy. Yeah,
[00:08:27] Adam Mossoff: yeah. Not exactly.
[00:08:30] Josh Sloat: Thanks, Adam. We're also publishing clips from the Mossoff Minute. A short form videos on Instagram, Reels, YouTube, Shorts, and TikTok. You can check out these shorts and follow us at Aurora Petents on all three platforms. Now without further ado, here's our conversation with James Howard.
Uh, welcome James, and thanks for carving out some time from a no-doubt, busy schedule to chat with us.
[00:08:51] James Howard: Thank you. It is my absolute pleasure to be joining you, Josh. Yeah, uh, yeah, it's just going, going through the,
[00:08:58] Josh Sloat: going through the list, professor [00:09:00] Historian, Entrepreneur, industrial designer, Inventor Restaurateur.
Really, really glad, really glad that there's an opportunity in there for, uh, for podcast guests as well too, because, uh, yeah, that's a, that sounds like quite, that sounds like quite a schedule. So, um, you know, the first question, you know, I sort of like to, you know, do things kind of chronologically sometimes, uh, just, you know, we've got a lot of inventors in the, in the audience.
Could you tell us a little bit about your origin story as an inventor?
[00:09:27] James Howard: Sure. Uh, well, it kind of begins with my very first job right out, uh, out of grad school. Uh, I went to work for a company that, uh, is the leading manufacturer of ADL equipment that is AIDS for Day-in-the-Living. And in that experience was the opportunity to often meet with individuals who were inventing gadgets and products to help, to aid their loved ones, you know, reaching A's, feeding A's, dressing a, and things of that nature.
So I had a chance to work [00:10:00] directly with these individuals, and the company would often, uh, buy the idea and then get a patent on it. So I would have to turn that idea, that raw idea to a manageable, you know, product. And then translate that into a patent. So my first seven or eight patents were all in the field of ADA Aids for daily 11.
And everything from spoon Aids that aid doing self-feeding to reading, Aids to aid you and turning pages with your head, uh, automatically and things of that nature. So that's, that was my entree into invention. And then from there, I, uh, decided that.
I wanted to expand my horizons. So I went into starting Howard design in, in 19 eighty-seven. And from there opened up a whole world of opportunity for invention. In fact, one of my very first inventions, uh, under the moniker of [00:11:00]Howard, uh, design was a neonatal pressure relief valve, um, which went on to, uh, become one of the leading pressure relief valves of this kind in the entire world.
And it was the first pressure relief valve that was single-use, uh, disposable. So that means every single time, that time you use this valve on a child to resuscitate an infant at birth, you would just throw the valve away. And unfortunately, when I learned of this opportunity, the company had mentioned to me, Vital signs had mentioned to me that prior to.
This particular, uh, invention, every valve that was ever made was made of, uh, high-precision stainless steel. And each and every time they would have to use one of these valves in the emergency setting, they would then have to send it down to get it sterilized. Right. So I learned Josh of horror stories where just when the valve [00:12:00] was needed most Oh sure.
Were none available. They were all being sterilized. And so doctors and nurses, practitioners would have to literally hand prime the pump. And unfortunately with infants, particularly preemies, if you hand prime the pump too much, you can collapse the lungs. Yeah. And if you don't open up enough airways of oxygen, then you can give, make the brain deprived of oxygen and you can have brain deficiencies and so forth.
So this valve was absolutely critical.
[00:12:32] Josh Sloat: Yeah. That's just. I mean, it's just an, an, an amazing story. Um, you know, just of, of how, how inventions, you know, really run, run the gamut of, of, of things that impact our, our daily lives, you know, in such, in such profound ways. And, you know, I mean, something like that, just especially so, um, because like you said, I mean, that's, that's such an urgent situation.
You don't, you don't have time to wait for something to come back from, [00:13:00] um, from, from cleaning. And so it's just, um, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's remarkable. And, um, you know, it has to be, I don't know, it has to be very gratifying to sort of even just think about the number of lives that, you know, you, you positively impacted, um, with, with that.
So
[00:13:16] James Howard: it's very, very cool. Thank you, thank you. From there, I also went on to design a whole host and get patents on cardiovascular delivery systems every, everything from stent crimping devices responsible for crimping, a stent onto a balloon catheter, to a septal closure device responsible for closing up, uh, holes in infants hearts.
Uh, so it just, it has just run the whole gamut and it, and it kind of falls in line with my basic philosophy and my mission in life, and that is to serve others. And I figured if God's gonna give the talent to be creative and to do these innovative types of outputs, [00:14:00] that it should have more of a slant of serving others as opposed to self-gratification and so forth.
[00:14:07] Josh Sloat: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So we, you know, we, we sort of, um, crossed paths originally at the U.S Inventor conference. Um, Mm-Hmm. You also told a, I thought was a, a, a really great story about, um, about your granddaughter, I believe it was, and Mm-Hmm. A lot, a lock that you lock that you had invented. Could you, could you tell us a little bit about that one too?
[00:14:27] James Howard: Yeah. It was actually pretty made. It was, uh, not this past Thanksgiving, but the prior one in 2000 twenty-two and, uh, what, uh, we had done right after, uh, eating dinner at my daughter's house in Pennsylvania, I decided to take my grandkids to the local Barnes & Noble and while to buy them their first Christmas gift of the season.
Right. Uh, this is Black Friday, and, uh, while we're there in the toys section and.[00:15:00]
I look over to the right and I happen to see one of my patented products, right, an access control lock that I did, uh, for a company, uh, alarm lock. And it happened to be the first access control lock in the country that actually had a mechanical override. So just in case the power went down and everything, you can just push the buttons and it actuated mechanically and so forth, and was better operated.
Anyway, so I see the lock and I see my three grandkids and I make a connection. I look to my right, there's the lock on the door. I look to my left. There are my three grandkids flocking over toys. So I called them all over to the door and uh, I say, look guys, this is a great moment. I'd like for you to stand right here and take a look.
And I took a picture. Now, my granddaughter, up until that point, didn't even know that granddad was an inventor. My youngest granddaughter had no clue what an inventor was, uhhuh. But my oldest grandson. He goes with me everywhere, and he has seen this lot a [00:16:00] million times. So as I'm gathering them all around the lot, he's going, oh, Granddad not again.
Right? So, take the picture I purchased, you know, all the toys for them and everything. But right there in that moment, my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter started saying, granddad Granddad, what does an inventor do? What
do
[00:16:20] James Howard: they do? How do they invent? You know, uh, do they get rich? You know, how do they do it?
How do they do it? And so I started explaining to her right there in the moment, I said, listen, you gotta begin with research. She goes, well, can I invent a toy? I say, yes, you can if you put your mind to it. She says, how do I do it? How do I do it? Mm-Hmm. I say, well, you start researching. So they started researching.
They started going to this shelf and that shelf, and looking at the details and asking questions, how will I prove it? So forth. And then we left. We got in the car, it's about a twenty-minute ride back to the house. And during that entire 20 minutes, my granddaughter is grilling me on what it takes to be [00:17:00] an inventor, right?
What it takes to be an inventor. And by the time we get home, that's all she wants to do. So naturally our younger sister joined on board and my reluctant, adamant grandson came aboard and they spent the rest of the evening inventing a product. And if you don't mind, I'd like to go right over to the table and show it to you.
Yeah,
[00:17:22] Josh Sloat: please do. Yeah, absolutely.
Take
[00:17:24] James Howard: two seconds. Sure. They ended up spending the rest of the day inventing Slap. Happy to my grandkid's right there. Oh, that's great. The tagline says The childhood game. That explodes with excitement. And what it does is really clever. You just did a, uh, have a stack of cards in middle of the floor and.
When you flip them over and a match occurs, the first person to slap down on those cards get that set, all right. And then we factor in other components. It just makes it so intriguing. [00:18:00] And, uh, so yeah. So right now we're trying to put that on a pathway, but I'm using it more as a learning experience for them.
Sure. Right. So I'll be entering them into a pitch competition. Can you imagine that 11-year-old and a nine-year-old pitching slap happy? Right. So yeah, just an amazing. I
[00:18:21] Josh Sloat: mean, it's so, so, so neat too, for them too. Um, you know, and this is something you, you saw earlier on in, in your career of, you know, sort of like idea to commercialization and really, you know, seeing that, seeing that end to end, um, you know, is very, very, very empowering.
But, you know, the Oh yeah. Like the, the whole, the whole, the whole thing's a the whole thing's a wonderful, um, a wonderful story. I think that the, the part that, the part that I love so much about it, um, and that just really gravitated to when, when you're talking about U.S inventors, just like what a moment of inspiration sort of that, that was in, you know, in a, in a child's, in a child's life.
You know? I [00:19:00] mean, that, that, that could be like a, a life, like a, like a life-defining, um, a life-defining moment, uh, and to make, to make sort of what you had done tangible, uh, you know, in, in that way. And. Actually, I wasn't even gonna talk about this until later, but I wa I, you know, I watched your, um, uh, we will talk more about this in a little, a little bit, but I watched your, you know, black Inventors got game, um, documentary, you know, this morning.
And, uh, you know, Lonnie Johnson had, I had this great quote, I wrote it down, I loved it, I loved it. He said, you know what they see they will be, and, and it was like, what, what you, what happened there with the lock and everything that ensued, you know, up to the board game and where they are today is, you know, an absolute real-world manifestation, you know, of, of that.
So, just, just, just a wonderful, just a wonderful
[00:19:48] James Howard: story. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that, and this is why it's so important for us as adults to serve as mentors and do just as much of a job of listening [00:20:00] to our kids, you know, as opposed to lecturing to them and advising them. Yeah. Listen to what motivates them.
Listen to what they really, you know, are passionate about and concerned about. Like with my granddaughter, um, Kara, it only took that one little spark of curiosity. The center on that pathway. Yeah. And I'll add this editor antidote. She was so driven by this whole world of invention that she started researching other black innovators of the past.
And she stumbled upon this one particular innovator by the name of Alice Ball. Okay. And Alice Ball's story is somewhat sad because it, uh, started with her inventing a method for eradicating, uh, for, for, uh, for managing leprosy. And so her delivery system was the first effective way to manage leprosy.
This was in the early-nineteen hundreds. And while she's in grad [00:21:00] school and she's petting and, and getting all of her work done in this process called the ball method, you know, she's been very successful. She's been applauded and lauded and everything. Suddenly, unfortunately, she has an incident in the lab and she dies a year later, a year after inventing this bald method.
Right? So upon her death, the head of the school decided to take full credit for her work and rename the method, the dean method. And for over a hundred years, the Dean Method had been credited with the work of Alice Wald. And just recently, within the last couple of years, the University of Hawaii has set the record straight and has given her all of her due diligence and claim to being the pioneer for managing this dreadful disease.
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so again, it only takes that one spark of, uh, inspiration. [00:22:00] Then you start researching and Josh claiming simply, this is why my mission is so important. To have a place where kids of all persuasions and ages can just go and be inspired, you know? Yeah. To become the next great son and doctors and engineers.
I, I
[00:22:18] Josh Sloat: suspected this was gonna be a good segue to that, to that next question. So, I mean, you, you know, you, you founded the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. What were, uh, what was your, what were your drivers for that? What's your, what's your mission, your goals? What are you hoping to accomplish?
[00:22:30] James Howard: Well, you know, interesting enough, the, the catalyst was me constantly seeing our story being suppressed.
And, and that's not how perfectly it has truly been suppressed. And, and twenty-eight days of the month of the year, once a year just isn't enough. Right. To give full justification for that storyline. And so the real true catalyst was one day, uh, I was in the supermarket looking through a [00:23:00] Time magazine special article called America's Top 100 Inventors.
Right? And they cover the whole art from day one all the way up into 2016 art top 100 inventors. So they have on the front cover, they have Thomas Edison, they have Richard Gray, they have, uh, Alexander Graham Bell, they have Henry Ford. Heck, they even had Steve Jobs on there, right? And all of these faces, and I'm saying, wait a minute, I don't see a single black face on there.
So I'm okay with that, Josh, but I decided that I'm gonna open it up and okay, at least I'll see, you know, coupled in there, right? Not a single one, not a zero. And that kind of stayed with me, Josh, for four years that stayed with me. This stuck with me and it bothered me. I'm not gonna kid you. So the candidates was one night.
I am looking at, uh, on, on the computer. This is during Covid when we were all, you know, in the homes, and [00:24:00]I'm looking at the grand opening of the national, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I'm looking at that grand opening, which was on the lawn and Washington, DC Yep. And Obama was in office.
And so they had all of these celebrities and notoriety, government officials come and praise the museum and so forth and so forth. And for three full hours, there's a storyline about acknowledging our enslaved past, acknowledging our civil rights past, acknowledging our sports past, and our entertainment past not a single word bitch, about our illustrious innovation and inventive past.
Not a one. Not a one. I was determined that night. To do something about that. Yeah. And it just so happened, Josh, I was being interviewed just like this. Yep. I was being interviewed by a gentleman by the name of [00:25:00] David Caldwell. Darryl Caldwell Rather Dale, and at the end of the interview, Dale had asked me, he says, you know what, Mr.
Howard, you know so much about African-American, inventor history, and so much about this and so much about that. He says, have you ever thought about opening up a black Inventors hall of Fame? And those words just resonated, man. Three months later we were opening up. So that's, that's how, that's the total origin of Black Inventors Hall of Fame.
And now we're on the destiny to open up the first and only museum in the country dedicated exclusively to immortalizing pioneering genius of African-American inventors for the past 400 years. Yeah,
[00:25:44] Josh Sloat: that's, it's great. And it's, you know what, what you noticed, I. Think little, little, you know, commentary for me, I guess, but, uh, was a huge opportunity, a huge missed opportunity, I think for, you know, for others especially, um, in an [00:26:00] opportunity to celebrate that, that convergence, like with the accessibility of the, of the patent system.
You know? So I mean, like, we're, we're obviously very biased. We, we love, we love patents, but one of the things that we really, really love about patents is, you know, we started digging more and more into the, you know, the historical roots of, of these things. Mm-Hmm. And one of the things that jumps off from the, the earliest, the earliest pages is the accessibility of the system.
Like the, you know, the 1790 Patent Act, you know, talked about, you know, granting exclusive rights to, um, inventors and, and they, and they said, you know, he, she, and, and, and they, and didn't explicitly, you know, exclude, um, minorities, people of color or anything at a, at a time when, when women and people of color couldn't vote, couldn't own property.
Here was this patent system. That was, that was, you know, accessible to all in, in, in ways that tragically unfortunately other things at the time were, were not. Yeah. And so there's, there's a really interesting convergence of things here that's really worth calling out and celebrating.
[00:26:57] James Howard: Well, it is interesting you would state that, uh, I wanna [00:27:00] double-download that a little bit and, uh, make note to the audience that, um, yes, you are correct.
The accessibility was there. But unfortunately during that time, slaves were not allowed to attain patents 'cause they were not considered citizens. So those who did, in fact, uh, that are of, uh, African-American persuasion, who did attain patents, were freed men. In fact, the very first black man to ever achieve a patent was Thomas Jennings in 1821 because he was a freed man.
He was up in New York and he invented dry cleaning. He invented dry cleaning. Uh, but the paper trail is, is very thin on. Those others who were denied patents. And the most noted story, I'll tell you very briefly is that of Benjamin Montgomery who was, uh, enslaved to Joseph Davis. Joseph is the, uh, the brother of Jefferson Davis and [00:28:00] Benjamin Montgomery designed and improved a steam propeller that helped to revolutionize that industry at the time, literally, and was so effective that when he was denied his patent because he was a slave, Joseph Davis attempted to patent.
And even the patent office said no to that because again, it was originated by a slave. So, you know, those storylines were steep and rich and, and, and it's my job to try to go and uncover more of those so that we can complete the entire story arc. Do you realize the very first, um, African-American woman to ever receive a patent?
Didn't even sign her name. In her name. She signed it with an X. She signed it with an X. Her name was Judy Reid. And she got a patent on a Knead-Doller, that Kneads Dough, a mechanical knead-Doller, when she signed it with an X, It has been [00:29:00] determined by many pundits that the reason she signed it with an X was because she was illiterate.
However, I also seem to think that there's a great chance she signed it with an X was because if she had intended on receiving franchise from this dough, Knead-Doller, that if it had been known that the product had come and been invented by a colored woman or a black woman, it may not have been well received by its audience.
Right? Right. And we know that to be a fact. Ellen Eglin, who had invented a clothes wringer that revolutionized the laundry industry. At that time, she was a domestic servant from Washington D.C. She invented this clothes wringer and sold it for $18, $18 to a white agent. He went on to make riches from it by selling it to the licensing of it to three other manufacturers, and Ellen Eglin [00:30:00] got $18.
Fast forward 10 years later when she's been interviewed by a, uh, women's magazine called Women Innovators. She says this, and I quote, they asked her, why did you sell your wringer for just $18 when it makes so much money? And she goes, well, you know that I'm black, she says, and if it had been known that a colored woman had invented this product.
White women would not have purchased it. That is why I sold it for $18. So that's just an example of our story and why these stories are so important to connect and get out to the public so that, you know, future generations of, uh, innovators can be inspired, inspired by their parents. Yep. Yep.
[00:30:49] Josh Sloat: Abs.
Absolutely. Um, and I wanna, I wanna go, you know, even a little bit deeper on that if, if we could, so Mm-Hmm. You know, a new, a new format that we've started in the [00:31:00] podcast centers around, um, inventor stories, you know, uh Mm-Hmm. Which is something that we've absolutely loved doing. We've gotten really great feedback on it since it's Black History Month and since I cannot imagine a better person to ask this question than the man trying to shine more light, um, on the very important aspects of that history.
Um, could you tell us about a couple inventors that impact daily life, but, um, you know, whose, whose inventors are just not yet household names? I. You
[00:31:25] James Howard: know? Yes, yes, I can. But I'd like to begin with one who is tentatively connected to something that we do daily as we travel. And that is as you go to airports and you hop on a plane and you hop off of a plane.
Well, as you know, the airplane is pretty much initiated at the turn of the century when much of the world had its eyes on taking flight. It wasn't just here in this country. Other parts of the world were racing to, uh, get patents on, on taking flight. And as you know, the Wright brothers were walking towards that as well.[00:32:00]
But a little known
fact
[00:32:01] James Howard: is that there is a black man by the name of Charles Frederick page, who was born into slavery, was self-taught, raised 11 kids, and he was a carpenter by trade. 11 kids. Well, he had joined that race and he had sought to seek franchise from a competition that was going on in, um, Louisiana, uh, not the St.
Louis actually, but it was the Louisiana Exposition. So he designed and built an airship and Patented it, and he received his patent one month before the Wright brothers received their patent. No kidding. But yet you never hear of Charles Frederick page. It's one of the original aviation pioneers. So what I try to tell people in my community is don't go around saying a black man invented an airplane.
That's not the point. That's not the story. [00:33:00] No one would ever claim that. What reclaiming is that when we're talking about aviation pioneers in this country? He needs to be part of the discussion. Sure, absolutely. His patent preceded the Wright Brothers patent by one month, and Josh, I'm gonna be building a full-size replica of his, uh, airship and, um, having it on display at the museum at the Black and Vietnamese Hall of Fame Museum.
I'm working closely with the family. There's only one person still on the face of this earth that is, was actually around, uh, before he died. And this is his cousin. And this guy was 10 years old at the time when Charles Frederick page died. And so we're interviewing him and we're gonna get that story up.
Charles Frederick, PhD, unknown Aviation Pioneer. So that's one example, but another example, for instance, on the flip [00:34:00] side of that is the work of Dr. Hedalia, Nicole Green. And Dr. Hedalia. Nicole Green has a patent on a nanotechnology for eradicating cancer that few in the world in the medical community knows about.
Right? And you and I both know the ravages of cancer. It is just something that someday, that's the innovative genius of all mankind is gonna eventually get to a point of eradicating sad cancer. Well, Dr. Nicole Hedalia Green is on the precipice of doing just that. Yet she is struggling for getting the proper financing she needs.
Uh, and uh, she took the root of Elijah J. McCoy Granville, T. Woods and Henry Boyd all prior African-American inventors of the past during the Golden era. And that is when no one wants to sort of like, invest in you, you invest in yourself. So she started her own, uh, [00:35:00] she started her own research. Um. A facility and, and is really about to do some amazing things in that area.
So you got aviation and you have cancer. I can't think of any more important things that impacts lives on a daily basis, you know, than those two things. And, um, just, it's just amazing the, the things that we've accomplished that just have gone unknown. Yeah. And, and, uh, so well,
[00:35:29] Josh Sloat: I mean, and that's, that's something we're, you know, we're happy to, more than happy to raise, you know, aware awareness around, you know, we, I was actually just, um, actually just having a conversation with somebody about this the other day.
There's, there's, there's things that sort of we take for granted in our daily life because there are problems that were solved by past generations, and we, we didn't, we never felt, we never felt the pain of these things. We were kind of just born into the convenience of the, of the solution. And there are a lot of things that don't kill people anymore because we have, we have [00:36:00] medical solutions for, for them.
And it seems to, you know, in retrospect, like a, like a, like a silly way to die. And that's like, that's my biggest, one of my biggest hopes, if not my biggest hope for the future is that at some point in our lives, or at minimum in my kids' lives, that they're gonna be able to look back and have that conversation about.
About cancer, right? Like Mm-Hmm. Oh, it's tragic that people don't have to die that way anymore. And that, and that they can get to the point of taking whatever that treatment is. What, you know, nanotechnology like that they can start taking it for granted. And the way that we take so many of these innovations for, for granted that, you know, that make our lives so
[00:36:39] James Howard: much better.
So, well-spoken so, so well-spoken and that moment's gonna come, Josh. Yeah. It's absolutely gonna come. Yep. Yep. Well,
[00:36:46] Josh Sloat: we, we applaud our efforts and, um, yeah. Happy to do anything we can to, to help get the, help, get the word out. Thank you. Um, next question. So, you know, I, I know you're working with some very [00:37:00]inspiring young inventors.
Um, you'd brought a gentleman by the dean of Nathaniel Smith with you to the conference that, uh, the U.S Inventor Conference. And, um, we've chatted with him since. Incredibly impressive, um, young man. Drawing from both, you know, your experiences as a successful inventor and now as a mentor of the next generation of inventors, you know, what advice would you give to those dreaming to change the world, but perhaps struggling to get that initial so important foothold?
[00:37:30] James Howard: My advice would be to borrow from the lessons of the past, borrow from the perseverance that Elijah j McCoy showed when he tried time to time again to sell his lubricating cup to people, and no one wanted to buy it, yet they knocked it off anyway. You know, borrow from that level of perseverance and whatever you do, don't let anyone, let anyone change your trajectory.
Set in your mind that you [00:38:00] are going to achieve and just keep moving forward, keep moving forward. And that's this old adage, uh, in my space of design thinking, judge, that says, if you are going to fail, you are gonna fall, fall forward, right? And if you're going to fail, embrace failure as learning. So I would encourage all of these young aspiring innovators to embrace failure as learning.
So to take every step of that right, and factor that in to learn how to sort of re-navigate, reboot, and, and go back at it. But whatever you do, don't let anyone change your trajectory. And I'll close with the advice of the old great, uh, soulful singing legend, John Legend. He, uh, he advises kids that when you hear no, take it as no for now.
No for now. So
[00:38:58] Josh Sloat: that's wonderful. I [00:39:00] that you know, that, that never, you know, that always listening to your internal compass is, is huge. Um, so I'm reading this, reading a book right now. It's called The, the Hidden Habits of Genius and Explore attributes of Genius over the, over the centuries, and, um. I don't have this quote Exactly, exactly right.
But the, the essence of it's there. Um, so Pablo Picasso's parents were supportive of his art, but not the manifestation of his art. So his father Mm-Hmm. His father was very, very, very strict about how he painted and, and he said, your painting needs to be more realistic. Yeah. It needs to be more lifelike.
And he got that beat into his head. And so as an, as an adult, he said that he spent his entire childhood learning how to paint like an adult. And he spent his entire adulthood trying to learn how to paint like a child. Oh yeah. Right. [00:40:00]Sometimes you're born into a supportive environment that, that says, oh yeah, maybe this kid's onto something different.
And sometimes, and sometimes you're not. But like, you know, hold, hold true. If that intercompass is pointing strongly in a, in a direction, like do not be easily
[00:40:19] James Howard: deterred. Um, Picasso held true and he got his greatest fulfillment in that latter part of his life where he was exploring his inner self and following that compass, you know, that led him to the discovery is one of the greatest painters of all time.
So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love that, love that,
[00:40:38] Josh Sloat: love that, love that story. Well, it's just. So, so much of genius is not recognized by the immediate peer group surrounding the genius either. Right. Um, and
[00:40:50] James Howard: that, well, you know, I, I often tell kids that when you have a great idea, oftentimes you find yourself being a minority of one.
Because Yeah. People can't, don't [00:41:00] always get it. Don't expect the folks to always get it, you know? And that's the sign of true genius. Yeah. Yeah. Where you, you are sort of, you know, that lone genius in some respects because the others just don't get it. But don't let that deter you and just keep moving forward.
And I tell you, there's so much hope and promise right now for today's youth. Yeah. Uh, this is why I'm leading research right now in STEM education. I'll be heading up a STEM summit in the late fall of this year that will bring together. Uh, all the significant, uh, STEMpreneurs of color in this entire country are gonna come together in Washington D.C and have a summit to discuss just that, you know, some of the best practices of how to reach these kids, how to reach all kids specific focus on underserved youth.
Yeah. And, and, and how to put together curricular and programs and talking points that are [00:42:00] really going to just, you know, make a difference and make the greatest and pay the greatest, you know, return on investment. So yeah, that's gonna take place in the fall of, uh, of this year. I'll let you know the date, in fact, and if you wanna come and take a few talking heads for that man, you'd be more than welcome.
Oh, please. I'll let you know.
[00:42:19] Josh Sloat: Please, please do. Um, I think it's, I think it's so important and, you know, it's an interesting intersection of, um, of this generation being born at a time when the technology is so much more accessible now than what it, than what it used to be. And, and en you know, and en and engaging like, you know, like the.
I, IWI work on like a lot of robotics kits and stuff. Mm-Hmm. With, you know, with Mm-Hmm. With our, with our son, um, and our, you know, and our daughter. And like, these are things that we can literally go to our public library and check out for a couple weeks and play with on their, on their iPad using like, drag and drop blocks of, you know, code and little, little Lego robots and stuff.
It's like, it's so, it, [00:43:00] and I just, I can't wait to see what that gives rise to from a generation. It's like, it's gonna be so equipped, you
[00:43:09] James Howard: know? Well, you, you know, interesting enough, we're seeing some symphonies of that right now in real time. Yeah. You know, the young man, uh, just of a month or two back, he was anointed the, uh, the young, uh, scientist of the year award.
He's 14 years old about this young man, 14 years old, and he designed and patented a, uh, soap, uh, and uh, a bacterial soap that fights. I can't remember exactly what it fights, but it does a serious job and he has a patent on it and he and the science industry just anointed him. The young scientist of the year, 14 years old.
I got to reach out to this young man and get him featured on my website. And then we have such young men like this. This young man here is Dejan Strickland, okay? I met him a couple of years [00:44:00] ago while doing my big tour in Kansas City. He was only 12 at the time. And this young man impressed me so much with the line of questions that he had At the end of the, uh, talk, he went on to develop his own book called Tech Boy.
It talks about kids growing up and learning how to do things with technology that is gonna help improve people's lives. And you know what Dejan is doing now? He has started his own missionary work of providing munches to the kids in the neighborhood who. I don't have enough money to eat regular nutritious meals each day in school.
So he's just a remarkable gentleman. But that is a young man who's inspired by innovation, but further inspired to channel that energy into doing something now. And you know, that old, that old, uh, adage about, go to school, get a good job, go to college when you [00:45:00] graduate, you know, you start doing something.
Today's kids are saying, why do I have to wait? I can contribute now. Yeah, yeah. And your kids can contribute Now, my granddaughter and grandsons contributing now. Yep. Yep. And this is their moment. It is truly their moment.
[00:45:18] Josh Sloat: We will get a, we Is that, is that book available for purchase,
[00:45:21] James Howard: Uh-huh?
[00:45:21] Josh Sloat: Yes, it is. Okay, good.
I will, um, I'll, I'll make sure to get a link to that in the, uh, in the, in the show notes and our write-up on Watchdog for this thank boy, he's, he's
[00:45:29] James Howard: a remarkable young man. Absolutely remarkable young man. The Jean Strickland. That's
[00:45:35] Josh Sloat: fantastic. Maybe we need to consider doing like a, a, a young inventors episode sometime.
That'd be, that
[00:45:41] James Howard: could be, I can help direct you to a couple men that would just knock your socks off across the board. These young kids, they're doing some amazing work. They really are. Uh, another conference I'm sitting in on, um, in August, um, in fact at the same spot where I first met you, [00:46:00] uh, is InventEd.
I'm gonna be, uh, one of the panelists, uh, in a special session on just that, you know, where are present-day, you know, generators, uh, of, of, um, the next generation of, of innovators, you know? Mm-Hmm. And we're talking, we're not even talking Dejan's age, we're talking my granddaughter's age and her sister's age.
Yeah. You know, we're, how can we, how can we feel them? How can we encourage them and just set them on a pathway? That even if they don't necessarily stay within the field of innovation, they have adopted certain attributes and skillset. Right. That would just be a positive role model in all endeavors of life.
Right? Yeah, and I, and I just think innovation and creative thinking and the ability to solve problems and identify problems, all of that is part of the equation that I believe the next generation is gonna do. Probably a slightly better job [00:47:00] than we've done. Well,
[00:47:01] Josh Sloat: yeah, because I mean, there's a, there's a positive contagiousness to that, that I, but like, you know, you really, there's a huge psychological component to it.
I think especially with, I mean, with kids, it, it never really ends regardless of the age group, but especially with kids, it's like, you know, you see the first born, they're kind of having to figure everything out on their, on their own, and maybe they don't have a lot of other kids around. Mm-Hmm. But then, like, you know, the, the kids that follow, they, they see other people that are pretty close to their age and size doing these things.
Mm-Hmm. And so, you know, they're sort of driven to do them even sooner because it feels safer. It's more, it's more approachable. Right? Like, I, I see someone more like me, you know, doing it. And so, um, you know, the exponential effects that that could have, like on a societal s scale are just, you know, it's really cool.
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Um, so next question. Uh, you know, patent focus patents are our focus. Uh, you have 20 of them. Uh, I'd love to ask [00:48:00] how they have helped on your journey.
[00:48:04] James Howard: On my journey as, as looking back, particularly starting now and then looking back, I get nothing but great fulfillment when I'm with my grandkids as exemplified in my prior story.
And I'm able to show them and point to a wall paper towel dispenser that's in most Dunkin Donuts across the country. Uh, that granddad has a patent on access control locks. So being able to tell those stories immediately to my grandkids are great. But then you get further, uh, fulfillment when you know that there are some products out there, though they've been retooled and re and improved and all of that, they set that industry on a pathway, right?
We're just better and more superior types of, uh, delivery systems that can help continue to save people. But at the same time, that journey hasn't always been smooth and fulfilling. And I wanna share with the audience one brief story about how a product that I [00:49:00] got a patent on. For a design patent on, for a Lottie pop blow dryer.
It was actually taken and stolen and, and, and, and given credit to a white design firm that told the, uh, uh, the engineering company that I was an imposter, that I did not invent the product. Right. So can you imagine having, having your competitors tell someone that you're trying to hit up for a, a contract and this company, it's called, uh, it was an electrical engineering company.
We were on the verge of signing a huge contract. It was in excess of a hundred thousand dollars to design a line of electrical gadgetry and what have you. And the director, uh, who was working with me, the director of engineering, he calls me up one day, uh, you know, with the contract in hand, by the way, it just hadn't been signed.
He calls him and he goes, James, I'm sorry, ma'am. We're gonna back off. We're gonna back off of this. I said, what do you mean? He says, well, we just left. [00:50:00] A competing agency. 'cause he was still doing his due diligence. Mm-Hmm. And we saw your blow dryer up on the mantle. And I said, what do you mean you saw my blow dryer on the mantle?
He says, yeah, we saw your blow dryer on the mantle and the company tells me that you didn't design that, that blow dryer and that you are an imposter and that you're lying and you're making the story up. And I'm saying, oh my goodness, are you kidding? Not again. And so I offered to show him a copy of the patent, which I did.
Back then, we were still faxing, right? Sure. Everything was down being faxed. So I faxed him a copy of my patent. There it is. My name across the top, James Howard. Curl Dazzle. Blow Dryer. A nice, beautiful rendering of the ink, rendering of the patent on the front cover the whole nine yards. Yep. This was the response that I got.
He goes, but you know what, James, I see you got the, you know, you got the proof here, blah. You the truth. [00:51:00]Truth. I don't know who to believe. Now let that marinate for a moment, even when you got the goods, and that has been right. Pretty much the script of our story over 400 years, even when you got the goods, still not good enough.
And that just rubbed me in such a way, Josh. Yeah. And I'm saying to myself from moving forward, I am just not going to allow this image, just persuasion of the African American, American creative being inferior to and therefore not as credible as, you know, their white counterparts. And that stuck with me.
That drove me. This, this happened back in the, uh, early nineties, around ninety-four. And, and ever since that moment, uh, that's when I took. To the lecture circuit of, of lecturing on, uh, the experiences of [00:52:00] black inventors. Because it happened to me, I was discredited, and I showed the total proof that I was the only inventor of that product, and yet it wasn't good enough.
Yeah, I'm really sorry you had to
[00:52:13] Josh Sloat: go through all that, especially, you know, um, someone who's an established inventor, you know what I mean? It wa wasn't your, it wasn't even your first right?
[00:52:22] James Howard: No, it wasn't my first patent. But you, you had
[00:52:24] Josh Sloat: a, you, you had a, you had a, you had a, you had, you had a track record, right?
[00:52:28] James Howard: Um, thank you. I did, I had, I had already done the valve that I told you about. I already done the lock that I and the paper towel dispenser. All of these were things that, uh, had already proven, but yet. Having to make a decision on why would a competitor lie about this guy and this competitor, by the way, I'm not gonna give the name of the company, but this competitor was from New York, had been in business for over 30 years, and yet somehow, some way they mistakenly [00:53:00] Mistakenly thought that the blow-dryer they had up on their mantle was theirs when it wasn't theirs.
I won't even get into the details as to how they would go about Mistakingly, my blow-dryer. The important thing is that even with the proof, even with having the good it's and the solid foundation proof that you are the only inventor of that particular item, it still wasn't good enough. And my friend, I can assure you that that has happened Countless times.
Yeah. Over the past 400 years to Inventors and innovators of my persuasion, uh, you just don't. The credibility, the uh, the acceptance thereof. And who knows Josh, it may just give, uh, some justification for just why I never did contact Time Magazine way I planned on, but it might just give some justification for why in this big, [00:54:00] thick article that they do special feature a magazine they do on 100 top innovators and inventors in this country.
Not a single one in there was black except two with I told you before, were in the bottom right-hand corner and very small captions, and each one of them could pass for white. So to me, that's like adding insult to injury. That even when we are recognized, you know, that there can be just some per some perception, you know what I'm saying?
Some perception of, you know, that darker melanin just not being equated and connected. Innovative pipeline and, and it, and it's just so true. And this is why I'm motivated to open up the Black and Benes Hall of Fame, the museum and STEAM Learning Center.
[00:54:50] Josh Sloat: Yeah, I mean, I think you're gonna be, I, I think you're gonna change the, the pages
[00:54:55] James Howard: Thank you.
On the magazine. I hope so. I, I, I, I really hope so. I [00:55:00] appreciate that, Josh.
[00:55:02] Josh Sloat: Um, James, you've been really generous with your time. Do you, can I, can I ask you two more questions?
[00:55:07] James Howard: By all means, please
[00:55:07] Josh Sloat: do. Okay. Um, so earlier, you know, in the discussion, um, I mentioned you did a documentary, um, I think in twenty-one, it looked like it was based on some of the filming.
It looked like you were, you were dealing with the, uh, oh, more difficult elements of the pandemic for logistics. Um, for sure. So your, your documentary Black Inventors got game, um, you had all of these, you know, incredible inventors and. In one, you know, in one place. I mean, just to, just to name a couple. Uh, it was, you know, Lonnie Johnson was their inventor of, of the, uh, super Soaker and Nerf gone over 300 billion worldwide.
Um, sales. You had, uh, Ken Johnson there, the inventor of phase 10, which is, I understand it's the second most popular selling card game. Mm-Hmm. While time did a really, really great collection of individuals, uh, you know, all together [00:56:00] in one place at one time. Um, two part question. First, uh, how cool was that?
And second, as a, you know, a lifelong student and teacher, um, I'm sure you were taking notes, uh, what were your, what were your big takeaways from hanging out with those guys?
[00:56:17] James Howard: Oh man. First of all, it.
And on that great day, I had the pleasure of actually greeting each one of these men at the airport as they came in. And I wanted that to be the beginning of the storyline. And these are pioneers, these are unknown short of money. These are unknown pioneers in the toy and game industry that have done groundbreaking work for that industry.
And just to bring them all together, that was e that equated with like that great picture that they have in Harlem, you know, of the great Renaissance where all these jazz musicians are sitting on the stairs, you know, coming together. We all came together and this is why I called that documentary that you're referring to [00:57:00] as the Gathering, right?
And we just had a conversation that was so, so important and the biggest takeaway from that. There were so many, but one you have already mentioned, and that was from my good friend Lonnie Johnson, who admonished his parents right. To see in your child what they can be. Mm-Hmm. And what you see, they will be.
Right. So my biggest takeaway is that each and every one of these young men, as I told their stories, and as I subsequently put a camera in front of all of them and gathered their stories, that there was this seed, there was this seed of, of creative rebellion, right? Sure. James Couch, John John couch refers to it as creative rebellion.
There's this seed of creative rebellion that the parents were fortunate enough to lay witness to and they saw, and almost [00:58:00] all of these guys' parents went on to encourage them. Not to dissuade this type of creative rebellion, but to encourage it. And this is why we end up with a Lonnie Johnson and a Ken Johnson and Elliot Eddy and Amon Morris, all because their parents saw in them what they can be and what they saw these guys became.
So, uh, and overall it was just a great experience we're gonna be doing. I don't mind letting your audience know, but I'll be trying to put together a gathering two. Oh, great. And gathering two is gonna include, uh, female, uh, pioneers, uh, black pioneers in the toy name industry. So I have to get a bigger room Sure.
And I'll at.
[00:58:52] Josh Sloat: One of my, I think one of my favorite, one of my favorite stories, uh, in it, because I'm, and I'm pretty sure, yeah, I'm, I'm very confident it was lon, it was Lonnie, [00:59:00] uh, was talking about how he was, um, experimenting, was trying to make rocket fuel in his mom's, uh, kitchen. Yeah. And, uh, almost caught the, almost caught the kitchen on fire.
And he was really worried, he was really worried about dad coming home and whooping. So he put, he put on a second pair of pants, he's terrified. Dad's coming home. And, uh, his dad, his dad just calmly says, son, you, you need to start doing this outside. And, and, and buys him like a, a like a portable hot plate so he can actually do the experimentation out outside.
And it's like, parents, if you take nothing else from listening to this, like, let that story, let that story sink in.
[00:59:44] James Howard: Let that story sink in, man. And each one of these brothers had that level of storytelling that they could do. And, and it just made it a, uh, a worthwhile moment for me as a film producer. And, [01:00:00] uh, it, it was just amazing.
So yes, I would encourage your audience to definitely go on YouTube and, uh, look at the, uh, the video. It's called The Gathering. Uh, and, uh, it's just a amazing, amazing project. I'll be,
[01:00:14] Josh Sloat: um, I'll for sure be including a, a link in the show notes. That too. So folks will have a thank you can click on Thank you.
Click on directly. Um, so my, my final question is just, uh, so the, the Black Inverse Hall of Fame is currently virtual, so folks can go and check it out online via be a link, uh, in the show notes for that too. Um, but as you mentioned, uh, physical presence is, is in the works. Mm-Hmm. How's that? How's that coming?
And how can folks help out?
[01:00:40] James Howard: Excellent. It's coming along great. Uh, what I will call swimmingly. Literally we have decided on West Orange, uh, and West Orange is also the place where Thomas Edison last had his innovation manufacturing facility. Cool. Uh, and, uh, so our museum will be just up the [01:01:00] road from Thomas Edison's Museum and, uh, it's, uh, it's gonna be 38,000 square feet and all the other components that I told you was gonna be, so what we're doing right now is we're in a major drive.
We're doing a, a major, uh, fund drive gala that's gonna be called Taking Flight, and we're borrowing the story of Charles Frederick page. I've already mentioned him. We're borrowing his inspiration. We're, you know, riding around a gala for that. We're targeting $10 million on that fundraising. And then we have also been, uh, approved for, uh, funding from the state, uh, which we're, uh, supposed to be on the budget for, for this year to, to gar to garner funds for, uh, capital building program.
And I have been, uh, pledged by a, um, African American inventor who has countless patents and has made [01:02:00]lots and lots of money franchising from his patents. He has pledged $13 million to the project. That's incredible. So, yeah. So yeah, we're, we're, we're really, uh, on a good pace to have this museum. Built by two, late 2000 twenty-six.
And, uh, so that's what we're targeting. Late 2000 twenty-six. And if anyone in the listening audience would like to help contribute, you go to our website, there'll be a page there where you go right to programs and support and support the initiative because all of that is so key and so vital to, uh, having the capacity to continue to push forward and make sure that this project comes to full fruition.
[01:02:44] Josh Sloat: It's, it's, it's wonderful. And, um, you know, we talk a lot about, uh, partner and I, we talk a lot about, uh, utilizing a talent, a talent stack. Like what's the, what's the unique set of attributes that you have that you can combine together that [01:03:00] differentiate you from. Almost every everyone else. And, um, I just think it's really cool how you're channeling, how you're channeling yours, you know, into the, into this mus into this museum, the historical background met with the, the industrial design strengths.
And, you know, even your penchant for, for film. Um, just can't wait to see how that all sort of manifests, you know, in, in one, in one place. Like what, what a, what a great way to channel your, your interests and passions and abilities, you know, all into, all into one direction like that. It's really cool.
[01:03:32] James Howard: Well, I appreciate that.
I appreciate that. In the fabled words of Pablo Carell in the Alchemist, he says, to put your desires and your wishes out there and the entire universe will conspire to help you achieve them. And that's what I'm doing now, and I'm, and I, and I know that will happen. Those are the laws of attraction. It's just a matter of time for, um, this grand [01:04:00] project is there for the world to see and, and benefit from.
Uh, I don't think we could end
[01:04:05] Josh Sloat: on, uh, uh, uh, more powerful words than that. So, um, thank you.
[01:04:10] James Howard: That was perfect. Thank
[01:04:11] Josh Sloat: you. Thank you James. Um, really, really, really appreciate it. Um, you know, want to keep the conversation going. Um, you know, I'd be happy to have you back on when, um, you know, when, when you guys launch or, you know, talk about another film.
So, um, yeah, love to keep, love to keep the conversation going and, and thanks for all the work you're doing.
[01:04:28] James Howard: It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, judge. Alright,
[01:04:32] Josh Sloat: that's all for today folks. Thanks for listening. And remember to check us out at aurorapatents.com for more great podcasts, blogs and videos covering all things patent strategy.
And if you're an agent or attorney and would like to be part of the discussion or an inventor with a topic you'd like to hear discussed, email us at podcast at aurorapatents.com. Do remember that this podcast is not constitute legal advice And until next time, keep calm and patent [01:05:00] on.
