Inventive solutions soar

Although now may seem like the worst time to finally get a patent for an invention that's been on your mind for years, experts say an economic downturn provides a prime opportunity for workers to do something different and follow their passion.

A 2009 study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation found that about half of the companies on the 2008 and 2009 Fortune 500 lists were established during years of recession. And Amy Rinaldo, a patent attorney at the Southfield law firm Warner Norcross & Judd, said she can't remember another time when so many workers have come to her seeking legal help with their inventions.

"Because of what's going on with job instability and job loss, if the worst case has already happened to you," Rinaldo said, "then you're going to say 'Why not? What do I have to lose?' "

Although Michigan has been hard hit in other sectors, it ranked seventh among all states in the number of patents granted in 2008, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Linda Chamberlain, executive director of the West Michigan Science & Technology Initiative, a program that assists inventors and entrepreneurs, credits the state's research universities and major industries for the high number of patents.

Michigan also has fifteen "SmartZones" where technology firms, entrepreneurs and researchers cluster and collaborate, Chamberlain said. Each SmartZone offers businesses help with commercializing ideas, patents and other opportunities and has access to seed money for which they can apply. "Entrepreneurs need to go where there is funding," Chamberlain said.

Bass in a box

Chris Badynee's entrepreneurial success began with a box.

After experiencing a house fire in 2006, Badynee, a 50-year-old mailman from Westland, was looking for a way to get his frustration out and began assembling a crude string instrument out of home renovation scraps. A cardboard box, bits of flooring and twine became the prototype for what would soon be known by musicians worldwide as a box bass.

Badynee, who'd been playing music since he was a kid, enlisted the help of his engineer cousins Alan and Mark Eden to perfect the instrument, which is similar to an upright bass. He then put a video of himself playing the bass on YouTube and it was picked up by ABC's "Good Morning America." Soon, he was inundated with e-mails from people as far away as Malaysia and Uruguay who wanted to buy the Bogdon Box Bass, so named after his father, a former Detroit firefighter.

Badynee and his cousins began putting together kits containing the same materials he'd used and offering them on eBay.

The bass now can be found at 14 retail stores in the U.S. and Mexico; more than 1,000 have been sold.

"Let's just say we're making a generous profit," Badynee said.

No more hair-pulling

After watching his daughter struggle with trichotillomania, a chronic and repetitive hair-pulling condition that is often done subconsciously, David Perlman, a retired University of Michigan instructor and academic administrator at the School of Public Health, and his business partner Joseph Himle developed a device that beeps and vibrates when a sufferer's hand gets too close to their head.

The patients record the time, date and other pertinent information after each incident on a handheld device.

The men are putting together a report to seek more funding from the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the prototype. They have one patent and another pending and the Awareness Enhancing and Monitoring Device could be on the market within the next two years, Perlman said.

Algae used to make fuel

Geoff Horst and his colleagues at Algal Scientific Corp. are hard at work inventing a new source of biofuel in an East Lansing lab. Horst, the Michigan-based company's chief science officer and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University, is testing combinations of algae species that suck up nutrients from wastewater and are then converted into biofuel.

Horst said he got the idea while he was collecting algae samples for his doctoral work with his father, who works in the alternative energy industry.

The company aims to start selling the algae in three to five years and hopes to create hundreds of jobs in the next 10 years. The patent is still pending.

"There are lots of opportunities to green the economy and provide jobs," Horst said.

There are definitely more enterprising individuals trying to bring their inventions to fruition at the Michigan State University Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources, which helps entrepreneurs start their business, associate director Ruben Derderian said. "It's more the entrepreneurial spirit that drives them than being out of work," he said.

jyoussef@detnews.com">jyoussef@detnews.com (313) 222-2319