Patents—Want to Know More?
By Kirsten L. Nichols
USDA Forest Service Patent Attorney Janet Stockhausen didn’t invent a new method for reinforcing wooden structures or come up with the idea to measure the quality of wood before a tree is cut down. She never came up with a new way to measure the moisture in forests to prevent forest fires nor improve the papermaking process by developing a cleaner way to bleach paper fibers. Stockhausen has never done any of these things, but without her work in the Forest Service Patent Program, these and other technologies would be struggling for successful commercial use.
Stockhausen heads the USDA Forest Service Patent Program in Madison, Wisconsin. With the help of her staff, Stockhausen reviews researchers’ inventions and develops patentable technologies for licensing. Through cooperative agreements, partnerships, and other mechanisms, the Patent Program can help convert research into usable information and technology that benefits both researchers and the forestry industry.
“Part of USDA’s mission is to provide leadership on natural resources and related issues based on sound public policy and the best available science. I believe these technologies advance our mission because they allow for the efficient use of natural resources that, on their own, have low market-place value,” said Stockhausen.
As its name suggests, the Patent Program helps researchers obtain and license patents. A patent is an instrument filed with the U.S. government that grants an inventor the exclusive right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a specified number of years. To qualify for a patent, the invention must be new, useful, and not obvious to those in the field of study that would use the invention.
The invention can be in any field of science, from the most complex to simple inventions by everyday inventors. If an invention would be valuable, an inventor can seek a patent as protection from competitors, and the Patent Program helps in this process. Having a patent is one way to document research accomplishments. The Forest Service and its inventors share in the income made from the licensed invention.
“Government has been patenting a long time,” said Stockhausen. “Despite decades of this practice, it wasn’t until 1980 that Congress realized that many of their patents were sitting idly, gathering dust on the shelves.”
Two laws passed in 1980 and the Technology Transfer Act of 1986 changed all that. As Stockhausen explains:
“The Technology Transfer Act of 1986 dictated that every Federal agency conducting research should make patenting and licensing an active part of its mission. Patents on the fruit of government research make the technology more appealing to the marketplace because of the exclusivity they offer. Most government technology is best transferred for the benefit of the public via journal articles, poster sessions, and other “public domain” methods. However, sometimes the product of government research needs to be manufactured or otherwise picked up by a company in order to benefit the public. In that case, patents are the best mode of technology transfer.”
 The Patent Program works with a variety of beneficial products. Some of these are useful only for scientists in a certain field, such as a method of bleaching paper products that reduce the large volumes of waste generated by traditional bleaching methods. Others can be used by people every day. These include a new kind of wood chips that can be used on playgrounds so people in wheelchairs can use the equipment without getting their wheels stuck in the bark, or a new kind of flooring for basketball courts that gives players a better bounce.
The following are three inventions that the Forest Service Patent Program has worked on recently:
(1) Technology for measuring duff moisture improves safety and efficiency of forest fires: The Patent Program has worked on technologies that improve the quality and safety of conservation efforts. One example of such an invention is an apparatus that measures the moisture content of duff, which is the surface layer of the forest floor.
Whether forest fires are caused by lightning, humans, or other factors, fires replenish nutrients in the soil and help regenerate space for new plants and wildlife habitats. However, before a controlled burn, firefighters need to know the duff moisture content, an indication of how dangerous it would be to start a controlled fire.
In the past, the only way to test the duff moisture was to take samples back to a laboratory and wait a day or two for test results. This process takes too long, given the rapid changes in field conditions.
The inventors developed a handheld, field-ready instrument to quickly test duff moisture. Their invention is a portable unit that can be carried to the forest and tests the moisture of forest duff using electrical calculations and surface probes. This way, people in charge of controlled burns and other forest managers can determine in a few minutes, rather than a few days, the duff moisture.
(2) Structural reinforcements make buildings stronger: Another invention is a structural reinforcement technology. This invention offers solutions for common weak points in normal building structures.
These inventors have a patent on a method of strengthening notches that have to be cut in wooden beams. Wooden beams are naturally weakened when corner angles are cut into them or holes are drilled through them for placement of connectors. Because of this weakness, over time, buildings can become structurally unsound by stressors such as earthquakes or heavy snowfalls. They found that by attaching fiberglass pieces to the side of the corner angles, or notches, with the grain of the fiberglass perpendicular to the grain of the wood, the strength of these notches can be greatly increased. They also found that sandwiching this fiberglass between two pieces of evenly notched wood increases the strength even more.
There are four patents for this technology of attaching fiberglass to wood, creating break-in resistant door panels and other uses in wood connections.
This discovery provides “new uses for lower grade, possibly weaker lumber and allows wood to stay in service longer,” Stockhausen said.
(3) Treating wood floors for strength and fire resistance: Sometimes patented technologies are part of everyone’s daily life. One technology is a method of treating wood for both hardness and fire-resistance.
Wood is commonly used as a flooring material, but because it is a product of nature, it can vary greatly from tree to tree. Wood must be treated for fire protection and protected from being dented by the pressure of shoes and furniture. The inventors developed a method to treat wood to make it both hard and fire retardant. The hardening capacity of this technology allows the faster-growing softwoods to be used for flooring, which relieves the dependence on hardwoods.
“The wood hardening patents have been very successful. They are licensed by a major flooring company and the technology is used in a well-known flooring product,” Stockhausen said.
If interested in licensing an issued patent or a patent application to commercialize USDA technology, you can view available technology and obtain a license application on-line or contact Janet Stockhausen at 608-231-9200.
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