ElectriPlast: The Shifting Focus...

ModPlas:

E-Weekly




By Tony Deligio
Reporter for Modern Plastics




Featured in web-periodical ModernPlastics--Apr 26th, 2007


Integral's conductive compounds charging ahead


Integral Technologies (Bellingham, WA) is shifting from research and development of its conductive polymer composite ElectriPlast to broader commercialization. Capacity is being increased, with one pelletizing line already in use and a second on order at its manufacturing partner Jasper Rubber Products Inc. Last year, ElectriPlast achieved its first commercial application with an internal hearing-aid component for Knowles Electronics LLC, and it sold another license to British Esprit Solutions Ltd., which just visited the company and is investigating several aerospace applications.


When MPW caught up with Integral chief technology officer and general manager, Thomas Aisenbrey, and Jasper president and CEO, Doug Mathias, in a mid-April conference call, the pair had returned from Detroit, where they emphasized the material’s new focus on wire and cable products, showcasing an ElectriPlast-based car-battery cable.


Potentially replacing heavier rubber-jacketed copper cables, the ElectriPlast cable, which suspends copper particles in a polymer matrix, is 80% lighter than its copper counterpart and has already completed life-cycle testing for one potential customer, enduring varying amperage loads and 24/7 operation for three months in an environmental chamber. The cables are non-corrosive, including their lugs, and maintain the conductive properties of copper.


Aisenbrey said that although Integral has signed 200 nondisclosure agreements and provided samples to interested customers, it has focused on 17 companies as viable leads, providing pellets and test plaques and in some cases even designing products. Working from a base of 12 resin matrices that are the most common in the electrical/electronics, aerospace, defense, and automotive markets it’s targeting, Integral, using Jasper as its compounder, has created more than 15,000 recipes. Aisenbrey says 113 U.S. patents have been filed, aiming to protect the material and applications, as well as their respective manufacturing processes. To date, 25 have been allowed, including one covering the compounding of an electrically conductive plastic pellet, vs. multicomponent conductive resin systems that require introduction of an additive.


Aisenbrey cites the Nov. 30, 2006 announcement of Jasper as a manufacturing partner as key to the momentum ElectriPlast has enjoyed of late, adding that many OEMs told him a full-scale production site, compared to his garage lab in Washington, “’is all we’ve been waiting for.’”


In business since 1949, Jasper entered thermoplastics in 1985, focusing on elastomers, although it works with some rigid materials. Mathias says it compounds all its own material, except silicone and FKM, a fluorocarbon elastomeric coating. Roughly 90% of the company’s sales come from compounded pellets, with the rest generated by molded products. Jasper is a licensed processor of ElectriPlast, and as such, it is already looking into full programs for some customers, including tooling and part production. “We can shorten the cycle time quite a bit,” Mathias says. “A lot of people would just assume have us mold the parts here.”—tdeligio@modplas.com

ElectriPlast: Patents Pending or Innovation Delayed?

Valuing

Innovation





By Vince S.,
ElectriPlast Blog Editor

"… the Power... to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

The Constitution of the United States of America

[Editor’s Note: I first wrote about Integral Technologies’ patents last October when I talked about the number of patents the company had filed and our Chief Innovation Officers’ inventive genius. Since the company’s business strategy is based on ElectriPlast licensing and royalties, a review of our patent status is long overdue. Specifically, we’ll look at the USPTO bureaucracy, see what’s in the mix of overdue Integral patents and review the status of Integral’s patents pending.]

In the Beginning

The ink on the US Constitution was barely dry when Congress voted to establish a United States Patent Office in 1790. The rationale backing this legislation was so compelling that President George Washington signed it into law during the first year of his presidency. The first US Patent Board consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox and Edmond Randolph, was tasked with evaluating US Patent # 001, which was granted to Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia for "making pot and pearl ashes," ingredients for making soap.

During the next 145 years, the US was fueled by creativity, driven by innovation and consumed by manifest destiny as it expanded “from sea to shining sea.” Along with expansion came the basis of a robust economic system. And the once rural backwater, often the subject of derision by Europe, became urban and industrial as it morphed into the most creative country in the history of the world.

Building a Bureaucracy

By 1935, the Patent Office had issued two million patents to US inventors; then America went on a tear creating the four millionth patentable invention by 1976. At the dawn of the Computer Age, in a blistering burst of creativity, the Patent Office issued the six-millionth US Patent in 1999! Six million patents in 209 years! Surely, the next two million patents would be issued by 2009. After all, the USPTO bureaucracy was operating at optimum efficiency.

Or was it?

Trouble in River City

Drilling down through the bureaucracy, EB found an Agency awash in paper in a computerized world, woefully understaffed and beset with a myriad of systemic problems that have lead to a backlog of over 700,000 unexamined patent applications. One highly-placed insider noted that the Patent Office continues to function much the same as it had 200 years ago. Problems have mounted as a result:

· At last count, there were circa 3,500 Patent Examiners (PE), about half the necessary strength to tackle the task. PE starting salaries range from $38K to $72K. (Good luck recruiting a Chemical Engineer graduate student to live in the DC Metro area for that money.)

· PEs who meet the citizenship, security and academic requirements are difficult to retain. The best and the brightest are frequently targeted by higher paying IP law firms in the private sector.

· Patents exceeding 100-plus pages in nanotechnology, bioinformatics, biotechnology, engineering, pharmaceuticals, software and the Internet among others are not uncommon.

· The case load per PE has increased in proportion to the difficulty of the technology and the accelerated rate of submissions.

· And last, but not least, was a Congressional “fix” that only made things worst.

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, tried to fix the Patent Office staffing deficit by increasing patent fees to give the Agency the ability to fund additional Patent Examiners. Unfortunately, the new fee structure produced so much cash that Congress raided the USPTO “piggy bank” whenever it needed funds. (They learned that from raiding the Social Security Trust Fund!) Needless to say, other legislation to fix “the fix” languishes in the hallowed halls of The Hill.

Enter ElectriPlast

Integral Technologies has filed over 120 patents; 21 have been approved and 100 are pending approval. Those unexamined pending patents will generate licensing and royalties from a many sectors, including, but not limited to:

· Automotive fuel cells, spark plugs, fuses, etc.,

· Avionics and aircraft structures, etc.,

· Braking devices and power components for subways; trains, etc.,

· Carpeting, flooring tiles, etc.,

· Cooking and heating elements; microwave oven components, etc.

· Fastening materials; i.e., bolts, screws, rivets and nuts, etc.

· Motorcycle, marine engine components, etc., and

· Specialty clothing and cloth materials.

In a recent press release covering the approval of one of its patents, Integral noted that the USPTO patent approval process was taking up to two years from the date of the patent filing. With that in mind, EB reviewed the 100 patents pending to determine how many were close to the two-year approval time.

The USPTO Patent Pending file reflected the fact that 59 Integral patents are overdue; i.e., they were filed more than two-years ago! Of course, the possibility exists that a small number of them might have been disallowed by USPTO. Even so, 59 overdue patents certainly bolsters the theory that Integral Technologies has plenty of news to deliver, big news!

Moreover, the EB review found that 18 additional patents pending are due to reach the two-year mark during May 2007.

Do the Math

So, let’s do some math to see if EB got it right. There are 21 Integral patents approved, plus 59 overdue for a decision, and 18 due to pass the two-year mark in May 2007. That’s 98 patents, folks! And there are another 22 Integral Technologies patents in the USPTO pile.

ElectriPlast: Mosaic Persuasion...

A Mosaic

Persuasion




By PK
ElectriPlast Blog Publisher




What you Know vs. What is Unknown.

Recently, the EB’s Editor-and-Chief, Vince, posted some thoughts surrounding the question of this investment in terms of building a mosaic.

In a side conversation I told him that I had considered submitting a similar article, especially after exchanging a response to comments posted by a few EB Readers a week or so ago when they questioned why it was so quiet and wanted to know the status on where the company and we stakeholders stood? More to the point, I noted that the article I had in mind should be inclusive to all Blog Readers looking to this site as a source of value added insight, especially during this quiet spell. The focus being to address the questions some may have as they wonder at the momentum lost over the past few months.

Suffice it to note, what has occurred, and what is happening at present, may look like a number of disparate events taking place without rhyme or reason. Without a scorecard, we, the shareholders, are left wondering at the larger picture. That is the problem we face with the silence coming from the principles, but it is also a potential solution, allowing a breather to reassess some of the reasons for the current angst felt among some of those very same investors.


First – what you know is what is real.

That is to say, over the past year, those investing in this speculative venture have done their Due Diligence to support the comments made both within this Blog and by sources elsewhere. Investor’s have verified this Due Diligence through independent sources, SEC reports, press releases, and company contacts. So, when I note that things have happened; awards have been garnered; licenses & contracts have been signed; agreements made; patents were submitted, issued and awarded; and that production of ElectriPlast IP material is underway – believe it when I write that these things are real.


Second – what you do not yet know is not always bad.

Simply put, Integral and the management at JARCO see vast potential surrounding the introduction of the ElectriPlast IP (and its broad horizon of uses and abilities) to the market at large. The silence sensed is partially due to IP protection concerns. This is not to make an excuse, but I do want all reading to simply understand that all of the patents have not yet been awarded—as a matter of fact, a few “key” patents are--even now--in the pipeline, and are due to emerge any day now. This is a lynchpin situation because these few critical patents may well end up determining the level of control that Integral and JARCO will maintain on the ElectriPlast IP, and possibly—speaking on a broader front—the range of control and extensive impact these pending patents may have on the whole of the Inherently Conductive Plastic and like material’s market. In short, the impact and potential at hand could very well be overwhelming.


Third – you may not realize the importance of what you know already.

This follows up on highlights presented in this Blog, and which might be worth taking a second gander at. One glaring issue of import centers on the time when Jasper first came on the scene. Some reading might remember my making a “thing” about this ISO certification that JARCO holds.

• Taking that a step further, let’s say—for a day—you were the one running a company which needed materials for your product components, and have two choices before you:
  
  a.) To acquire the materials you needed on the cheap; or
  b.) To go through established lanes and purchase the material from a known and certified manufacture—Which option would you go for?



• This question is a set-up to a true-life sceario, based on the story of the Dell computer company from a few years back. As with most industry leaders, the leadership of the Dell computer company is aggressive, and is constantly looking to get that extra competitive edge over others in their market. In this zeal of competition, they discovered that some obscure company in Taiwan, or somewhere thereabouts, was selling much sought-after capacitors at rock-bottom prices. Seeing an opportunity in the making, Dell’s leadership jumped on this bargain and purchased these capacitors in volume. Shortly thereafter, they took steps to began incorporating those same capacitors into their mainstream product-lines.



• Now the rest of this story could be the basis of a 1994 movie featuring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore called: “Disclosure” (except without the sex and intrigue). The running theme being, that the faulty capacitors purchased were of such poor quality, they ended up having a meltdown in thousands of computers after only a few months of use—and many more over time. The knock-off effect of this meltdown ended up costing the Dell computer company major money (somewhere in the neighborhood of almost 500 million dollars worth of settlement revenue). Another result of the fallout over this misstep was in the serious damage caused to the company’s reputation—damage so extensive, that to this day, they are still trying to recover—and all this simply because of an effort to save a few bucks and cut costs, by skirting a standard product certification process and opting instead to purchase untested capacitors from an unknown and uncertified manufacture/supplier.



• Now to bring this back to where we started. JARCO is a company that is known and is internationally acknowledged as a company that meets or exceeds ISO certified standards. The ElectriPlast IP is undergoing--or has undergone--the ISO certification process (this is one of the reasons behind the rumored 3rd party testing of the ElectriPlast materials). For JARCO to maintain their ISO accreditation, ElectriPlast too has to pass, or surpass these exacting standards. In doing so, ISO certification will yet again validate potentials surrounding the ElectriPlast IP, and will reduce even more the risk that we as early shareholders undertook when we first jumped onboard this speculative investment. Further, it will serve to grant assurances to those companies presently sitting on the fence, waiting to either invest in, or purchase ElectriPlast IP products or materials.



• So, back to the scenario question…you as the one running this company—for the day—have a choice. You can give the nod to JARCO (because of multi-pronged internal tests conducted through your R&D; based on JARCO’s ISO accreditation; and due to the independent 3rd party testing conducted on the ElectriPlast IP material) to fill your material requirements—or you can take the potentially more costly path as noted in the Dell scenario, and risk a decision that might end up biting you & your company in the butt? Life is full of choices, but wisdom doesn’t really have to cost 500 million dollars.

Fourth – to wind this down and keep it from becoming novel-esque...

I’ll just note that though there are a number of current events not widely known or shared, possibly because of IP protection/security concerns. Just because events are taking place behind the scenes, that does not hinder the fact that they are indeed occurring.


The Mosaic-effect.

When the pieces are cobbled together, merging all that is already known, the miriad of disparate issues and events might look like a blob when placed on a white canvas, but take a few paces back and like with a mosaic, the picture slowly begins to emerge.

Looking at this investment from a mosaic perspective, I can give credit to Vince’s earlier posting which touched on the past happenings, in conjunction with the behind the scene events taking place at present, all of which will ultimately have a staggering impact this investment’s future.


The content below represent extracts from Vince’s Internet postings*:

"…Bellingham has been too quiet for too long. If this is truly "our year," there are simply too many things that need to happen before too many quarters (Q2 starts this Sunday) go by. For example*:

(a.) What is the status of the Heatron, JARCO, ADAC, Esprit and Knowles licensing agreements? Have they been sitting on their hands or have they been hustling to develop ElectriPlast products to satisfy their various customers in the LED lighting, automotive, aviation and electronic acoustics sectors?

(b.) Where, in the developmental process, are those "several hundred" non-disclosure agreements that impact virtually every sector that we have heard so much about?

(c.) How close are we to hearing about the results of the independent third party testing?

(d.) Is JARCO, already an ISO-certified supplier, waiting for these results before "scrambling" their ace salespeople?

(e.) When are we going to hear about the 19 or so long overdue patents that were mentioned (q.v. Integral PR dated 07/25/06) as having been filed by September 2004, with an approval cycle expectancy 18 months to two years?

These items represent a massive logjam of positive news, anyone of which could send us into orbit, but none faster than favorable results from the independent third party testing. Everything will flow from that. All those company names we have used to create the "mosaic" in years past, will begin to become realities."