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Bette Nesmith Graham is credited with the invention but she had help. Anyone know who and why she needed the help?
I'm not sure what you are asking. She was a secretary and decided to find a better way to correct typing errors.chemisttree said:Bette Nesmith Graham is credited with the invention but she had help. Anyone know who and why she needed the help?
Are you talking later on when she patented the formula? The only reference I've seen to a chemist after her product started getting popular is to an un-named high school chemistry teacher.chemisttree said:Both of you are close. Her original product dissolved the ink from the paper and caused an off white spot. She got help from a fabulous chemist to perfect her idea. Any idea who?
The original (not the one Nesmith Graham developed independently) had chlorinated solvents which are toxic. The new formula doesn't have them.jim mcnamara said:I'd go with what Evo says, except that the old liquid paper had solvents that folks did not just happen upon at the corner store. Evo, did she have courses in Chemistry?
See this page for a hint about what I mean:
http://www.liquidpaper.com/main.taf?p=5&q=3
I think the solvent was an ether - definitely not diethyl ether, but I'm not sure. Obviously it was toxic/explosive or both toxic && explosive. It doesn't pass OSHA muster nowadays.
So you are claiming someone else also invented a type of "white-out", but not the famous one which became liquid paper that Graham invented by herself? That's a completely different question.chemisttree said:The original (not the one Nesmith Graham developed independently) had chlorinated solvents which are toxic. The new formula doesn't have them.
Evo said:So you are claiming someone else also invented a type of "white-out", but not the famous one which became liquid paper that Graham invented by herself? That's a completely different question.
What was the name of this other independantly invented product? Did it ever sell?
This is the first time you've mentioned wikipedia. I haven't read the wiki article. The only reference I've seen to a high school teacher is this on the Liquid paper site. It doesn't mention it being her son's teacher.chemisttree said:No, I'm saying that the Wiki article is wrong (gasp). It wasn't her son's high school chemistry teacher.
Ever resourceful, Graham recruited an office supplier, a school chemistry teacher and a friend from a paint company to help her perfect her product which was becoming increasingly popular. Her son Michael and his friends helped fill bottles of Mistake Out with the whiteout in the garage. Graham had a good product, and renamed it Liquid Paper in 1958, but it was certainly no overnight success. She continued to work in the bank, managing the business after hours, making batches in her kitchen, packing and distributing from the garage.
http://www.women-inventors.com/Bette-Nesmith-Graham.aspGraham continued experimenting with the makeup of the substance until she achieved the perfect combination of paint and several other chemicals. The refined product was renamed “Liquid Paper” in 1958 and, amid soaring demand, Graham applied for a patent and a trademark that same year.
So, you're saying Graham did not invent White-Out/Liquid paper? Please post a link to where you are getting this information. I've only seen Graham credited with inventing the product ALONE. Subsequent improvements had input from others, so what?chemisttree said:The inventor was indeed a Chemistry teacher (at a local university) but his day job was as a professional chemist.
Read my last post. He keeps changing who invents what. He's not making any sense.Gokul43201 said:Evo, I think Chemistree is asking us a trivia question (probably from personal experience).
Cotton is wrong. Who is it?
I never said that. I said that she had help.Evo said:So, you're saying Graham did not invent White-Out/Liquid paper?
What happened to the chemistry teacher that you mentioned in post #5 and #11?Please post a link to where you are getting this information. I've only seen Graham credited with inventing the product ALONE.
So, by law she must include the chemist as a co-inventor.Subsequent improvements had input from others, so what?
I'm saying that a professional chemist developed the formula that she ultimately sold to Gillette. And yes, that professional chemist also taught night courses at a local university.You first said she had help, then you said some chemistry teacher invented an alternative to it, now you're saying some chemistry teacher invented it. I can find nothing to back up either of your claims that she did not invent it.
You said it in these two postschemisttree said:I never said that. I said that she had help.
chemisttree said:The original (not the one Nesmith Graham developed independently)
chemisttree said:The inventor was indeed a Chemistry teacher (at a local university) but his day job was as a professional chemist.
I have no idea, you were the one asking who helped her in your OP.What happened to the chemistry teacher that you mentioned in post #5 and #11?
No, someone that either volunteers advice or is paid for advice on IMPROVEMENTS to a product already being sold is NOT a co-inventor.So, by law she must include the chemist as a co-inventor.
So what? That happens to be posted in the FAQ on the Liquid Paper site. Apparently he doesn't get credit for much. And neither does the office supplier or the painter. I don't get what your point is. Are you saying that the chemist is claiming he should be recognized more? That he was somehow cheated? I don't see any such claims.I'm saying that a professional chemist developed the formula that she ultimately sold to Gillette. And yes, that professional chemist also taught night courses at a local university.
Did she?chemisttree said:So, by law she must include the chemist as a co-inventor.
In that case, I would say we're finished here.chemisttree said:No.
Evo said:No, someone that either volunteers advice or is paid for advice on IMPROVEMENTS to a product already being sold is NOT a co-inventor.
Maybe you should get a new patent attorney. I'm not overly familiar with Patent law, but I don't know of any cases where someone was hired to make improvements to an existing product and got credit for the original invention. Take the telephone, for instance. The invention is credited to Alexander Graham Bell, even though he and Thomas Watson worked on it together. Bell is credited with the invention, not Watson. This chemist you mention wasn't even around when White-Out was invented, his help in improving it came much later, unless your chemist has proof otherwise, which would be interesting, but then why hasn't he filed suit?chemisttree said:My patent attorney would be horrified...
(I hope I don't get banned for this...)
While Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell nonetheless met in March 1875 with Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bell's ideas for a telephone and offered encouraging words. Spurred on by Henry's positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work. By June 1875 the goal of creating a device that would transmit speech electrically was about to be realized. They had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. To achieve success they therefore needed only to build a working transmitter with a membrane capable of varying electronic currents and a receiver that would reproduce these variations in audible frequencies.
In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.
I agree.Ivan Seeking said:Legally, today anyway, if the contract said "works for hire", then there is no legal claim to ownership. If not, then it might be argued in court. Of course this assumes that the changes made were significant enough [to justify another patent?]. I don't think something considered to be an improvement would ever lead to ownership.. well, again, unless the change made was signficant and innovative.
Evo said:Maybe you should get a new patent attorney. I'm not overly familiar with Patent law, but I don't know of any cases where someone was hired to make improvements to an existing product and got credit for the original invention. Take the telephone, for instance. The invention is credited to Alexander Graham Bell, even though he and Thomas Watson worked on it together. Bell is credited with the invention, not Watson.
Exactly. Bell is acknowledge as the inventor of the original phone, just as Graham is the acknowledged inventor of White-Out. Someone that comes along later and makes improvements cannot retroactively claim to be the original inventor if they were not actually involved in the original invention. That this chemist never tried to lay claim to a patent for a formula change in his own name makes me believe that he didn't have the legal right to do so. Even if he could claim a patent for the formula change, he still cannot claim to be the original inventor. He's just improved on the invention.Moonbear said:Yes, but a quick skim through patent records will show that there are many more "inventors" of improved-upon telephones out there. They just aren't the inventor of the FIRST phone,
jimmysnyder said:I hope there is no confusion concerning the difference between the inventor and the 'owner' of a patent. I am about to get a patent myself along with two colleagues. We are all employed under a 'work for hire' agreement. Although the company owns our work, the company is not mentioned as an inventor, only we three. Just yesterday we signed the assignment document. The patent office recognizes this as an agreement by the inventor(s) that someone else (the assignee) owns the rights to the patent.
So, someone writes on the net that he met someone who said that he was the inventor of liquid paper. That's two stories I have to believe. But why did the OP ask if I knew that? How could I possibly?
Being the acknowledged inventor doesn't mean she was THE inventor. There certainly have been plenty of incidences where one person claims the invention of another as their own. That seems to be what chemistree is suggesting had happened.Evo said:Exactly. Bell is acknowledge as the inventor of the original phone, just as Graham is the acknowledged inventor of White-Out.
Or he never realized at the time it would turn out to be anything, so didn't make a fuss about it, and now facing retirement with less savings than anticipated, has begun to regret that decision back then. Or he's just enjoying telling tall tales. I'm not going to presume one way or another.Someone that comes along later and makes improvements cannot retroactively claim to be the original inventor if they were not actually involved in the original invention. That this chemist never tried to lay claim to a patent for a formula change in his own name makes me believe that he didn't have the legal right to do so. Even if he could claim a patent for the formula change, he still cannot claim to be the original inventor. He's just improved on the invention.
From what has been posted so far, I'm not sure if the "improvement" was before or after the original patent was filed. Was the "improvement" essential to get it patented as something other than white paint and a nailpolish brush, or was it already patented but not selling well and he helped modify it to make it more marketable? The sequence of events would make a huge difference here, and I'm really confused from what's posted in this thread on what the claimed sequence of events is.It seems that chemistree is confusing the possiblity of getting a patent on an improvement with being recognized as the original inventor.
The story goes that Graham came up with the idea for Liquid Paper when workers were painting the bank windows for the holiday season. When a mistake was made on the window decorations it was simply painted over with white paint. She began to use white, water-based tempera paint and a thin paintbrush to cover her typing errors and called it Mistake Out. Initially she kept her idea to herself (her boss never noticed the paint on his documents). “I tried to keep it a secret,” she said. “For five years I did just that, still, others found out about it.” She did not sell the first bottle of Mistake Out until 1956.
Ever resourceful, Graham recruited an office supplier, a school chemistry teacher and a friend from a paint company to help her perfect her product which was becoming increasingly popular. Her son Michael and his friends helped fill bottles of Mistake Out with the whiteout in the garage. Graham had a good product, and renamed it Liquid Paper in 1958, but it was certainly no overnight success. She continued to work in the bank, managing the business after hours, making batches in her kitchen, packing and distributing from the garage.
This is not an issue in our case as the company has promised to pay us $1 for the assignment. We don't yet know if this means a single dollar for the three of us to share in which case there may be some ugliness about that odd penny. Or each of us will get our own dollar. It doesn't matter much since we have to go to headquarters in NYC to get the money and that means travel through enemy territory. I'm told the swamp gas in North Jersey kills people in Connecticut. I told the CEO that my name on the patent would make it easy to get my next job, and he agreed.BobG said:Getting one's name on the patent as the inventor is important even if the rights belong to the company that the inventor works for. It's a big boost for his future employment even if he doesn't get any money from the invention itself.
chemisttree said:The story as he told it was that Bette showed up at his office with a can of flat wall paint and an empty fingernail polish bottle and said that she needed help.
But we have nothing in writing confirming that was the way it was. I remember an early history on her cooking up the stuff on the stove, she had started with tempera paint then adding things to make it more opaque and match the paper better.Gokul43201 said:In my legally untrained opinion, going from that to white-out is more than just "making improvements".
You know that white stuff you paint on paper to cover mistakes? It was originally called "mistake out" and was the invention of Bette Nesmith Graham, a divorcee who went to work in 1951 to support herself and her son.
Though she found work as a typist, she unfortunately wasn't a very good one and developed a white tempura paint to hide her mistakes. Using her kitchen and garage as laboratory and factory, she gradually developed a product that other secretaries and office workers began to buy. While continuing to work as a secretary, she educated herself in business methods, promotion, and research until she was satisfied that the product she had developed was really worthwhile. She then offered Mistake Out to IBM which turned it down.
Undaunted, Bette Graham changed the name from Mistake Out to Liquid Paper and kept selling it from her kitchen-garage for the next 17 years. By 1968 she was making a profit. And in 1979, the Gillette Corporation bought Liquid Paper for $47.5 million plus royalties. She was also the mother of Michael Nesmith, a member of The Monkees.