Jeffrey Morris was sitting in his Chicago patent law office one day, facing one of those minor but ever-present annoyances of modern life.
“I had 10 knotted phones at my desk,” said Morris, referring to that odd phenomenon where telephone cords curl up like a threatened armadillo or twist themselves into a knot of Gordian complexity.
Most people just mutter at the inconvenience, but Morris thought hard about the knotty problem and came up with an idea that changed his life.
“It was pretty clear to me what you had to do,” said Morris, a tall and lithe man who resembles Bulls coach Phil Jackson.
Something like the swivel on a fishing line would do the trick, he thought.
And so the “UnTangler” was born. Morris patented the idea in 1988, and today is president of Telephone Products Inc. in Wheeling. The firm produced about 3 million of the gadgets in 1996, with $3.5 million in sales worldwide.
The UnTangler is a small plastic device containing 13 parts, including gold-plated wires. It connects the cord to the hand set–and swivels so the cord won’t twist itself into a knot.
“I’m not a major success story, but I feel very successful,” said Morris, who was named 1996 alumnus of the year by the University of Illinois department of general engineering in Urbana-Champaign.
“I’m not Bill Gates, but we created 40 jobs and we’re paying our bills. That’s what people need to get turned on about.”
How hard would it be to come up with a novel idea and match Jeffrey Morris’ success? Keith McKee, director of the Manufacturing Productivity Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, estimates it’s one chance in a thousand.
“Most things are very step-wise,” explained McKee. “Something exists and somebody does it a little better.”
But Morris was an exception. It was a new idea, although a California competitor came up with a similar item about the same time. But Morris kept at it.
McKee applauds Morris’ persistence. “That’s the way it should happen,” he said. “Design it, build it and make money.”
According to Morris, that’s easier said than done.
“It’s easy to make a few of these things, but to make millions of them and make every one work every time is another ballgame,” said the executive.
“What is difficult is to take the idea and translate it into a commodity that is known and purchased by the public–that requires a business. To sell millions, you have to have an organization.”
And luck helps, too, he emphasized. Morris knew he was a good patent attorney, but he knew nothing about design and manufacturing.
So he want to the Wheeling yellow pages and found Elenco Electronics Inc.
“I was lucky to find three guys who were honest and excited about the project,” said Morris. “We grew from scratch.”
Until 1995, Morris was a part-time lawyer and a part-time businessman. But the business was growing so fast, he became full-time president of the company.
Telephone Products today sells to distributors supplying Radio Shack, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kmart Corp., Staples Inc., Home Depot Inc., OfficeMax Inc. and True Value Hardware stores.
Though 90 percent of his business is based on the UnTangler, Morris is branching out into specialty advertising and cables for electronic equipment.
“I can’t think in 20 years we will still be selling UnTanglers,” said Morris. “You have to look for other markets.”
His advice to inventors, aside from being lucky, is: “Whatever your business concept is, protect it as much as you can. If it’s good, somebody will try to steal it.”
A lot of concepts emerge each year, judging by figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce patent and trademark office. The department reported 121,697 patents granted or reissued in 1996 of U.S. or foreign origin.
“Most of the patents we issue are utility patents,” explained William Brown, department survey statistician. Utility patents are for chemical, mechanical and electrical applications. Others are design or plant patents.
A total of 61,104 utility patents of U.S. origin were granted in 1996.
“Most utility patents are assigned to organizations or companies,” said Brown. “Independent inventors are more inclined to get design patents” such as a silverware pattern, said Brown.
A new report on patents granted by location shows that the Chicago metropolitan area ranked third nationally in 1996, with 2,476 patents granted, behind San Jose, Calif., and the Boston area.
The patent and trademark office does not track what happens to an idea once it is patented.
Promoting or commercializing an invention can be just as exciting and uncertain as the brainstorm itself.
Ron Popeil, inventor and marketer of products like the Pocket Fisherman, the smokeless ashtray and the Kitchen Magician, was one of the nation’s most prolific–selling $1 billion worth of them in the ’50s, mainly as a TV pitchman.
“There are not a lot of blockbusters that come out of it in terms of market or economic impact,” said Thomas Jacobius, director of Technology Transfer at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
“Those that really transform ideas into business are the venture capital companies, more than anyone else,” said Jacobius. “The payoffs for individual inventions are pretty risky and few and far between.”
One of the leading venture capital companies in Chicago, said Jacobius, is Batterson Venture Partners.
Len Batterson, chairman and CEO of the firm, was a founder investor in America Online, and gets about 120 business proposals a day on the Internet.
“We’ll work with the entrepreneur and inventor to try to understand if there is a commercial market for the technology,” said Batterson. “If there is, we sit down and help put a business plan together.”
After that, Batterson tries to interest some of the 50 members in his venture capital group.
He describes them as “kind of a who’s who of technology elite, plus some financial types and others.”
“We fund projects anywhere from $500,000 to $3 million,” he said, sometimes less, although typically inventions come to them after startups were funded by people with some money to spare, like friends who are doctors or dentists.
“Most new markets get their money from that source,” said Batterson. “Then, later on, maybe they have a prototype or have sold a device. Then venture capitals get interested, particularly if there is a large market opportunity.”
Batterson said that even at this stage, one idea out of a hundred is successful.
So how well do the venture capital heavy hitters do?
“I’ve been able to generate better than 30 percent annual return,” said Batterson. “We don’t win them all, but we win our share.”
