December 6, 1999
PATENTS
Luminous Champagne, Scented Photos and Other Innovations
iven trepidations about the approaching millennium, much
inventive effort has gone into wind-up radios, wood-heating stoves
and other survivalist technology. But plenty of other inventors are
still focused on making New Year's Eves festive.
Hosts of future end-of-year galas, for example, might be able to
wow their guests with glow-in-the-dark champagne. Prolume, a
start-up company in Pittsburgh, has been awarded a patent for
making champagne, beer and other beverages bioluminescent -- by
infusing them with luciferase and luciferin, the same chemicals
that react to light up fireflies and many sea creatures.
Dr. Gene Finley, a founder of the company, said it was
developing several ways to make champagne glow. "One way you can
do it is to clone the luciferase gene into the yeast that makes
champagne," he said. Then, when the cork is popped, a seal breaks
and drops luciferin into the champagne. The champagne begins to
glow when the two agents react.
Finley cautioned that the champagne might require approval from
the Food and Drug Administration before it could be sold. But he
said that the luciferin and luciferase his company uses were
synthesized from those occurring in squid, and thus should be
edible.
"People don't eat fireflies but they do eat fish," he noted.
Fish, he said, contain these agents even if they don't produce them
naturally because they eat smaller fish or phytoplankton in which
luciferin and luciferase occur naturally.
Though the champagne isn't for sale yet, Prolume does sell
bioluminescent toys on its World Wide Web site (www.biotoy.com).
On a less whimsical note, another division of the company is
using bioluminescence to develop tumor imaging and other medical
technology.
"First we're bringing nature's night light to the consumer and
introducing the idea of bioluminescence through toys," Finley
said. "We will use money from the toys to pay for the other
research."
Dr. Bruce Bryan, the chief executive of Prolume, received patent
5,876,995.
Photographs with Holiday Scents
Eastman Kodak Co. received a patent last week for a way to
infuse photographs with holiday-appropriate scents. A New Year's
photograph, for example, might be made to smell like eggnog or
champagne. A Hanukkah photograph could be infused with the scent of
burning Menorah candles.
Eastman Kodak said it was unsure whether it would actually
develop such a technology, but the patent describes a camera with a
"scent menu" that lets the photographer select a scent before he
takes a picture. The scent selection for each frame is then encoded
on a magnetic layer of the film inside the camera.
Thus, on the same roll of film, a photographer could assign the
scent of a chocolate cake to a picture of a birthday party and, in
the next frame, the scent of pine or cinnamon to the family
Christmas portrait.
When the film is processed, a digital film scanner would read
the magnetically encoded selections and a "scent delivery device"
would coat the print with the appropriate scent, according to the
patent.
William T. Rochford and Michael J. Ritz of Kodak were awarded
patent 5,995,770.
This Confetti Has a Flight Pattern
Ardina Sterr, of Van Nuys, Calif., has patented a "unique
die-cut confetti that has unusual aerodynamic features that create
visually pleasing flight patterns that have not been previously
observed with confetti."
The secret to the aerodynamically superior confetti? It has a
hole in the middle, much like a doughnut.
According to the patent, this type of confetti is not limited to
doughnut-shaped pieces and will work with many other shapes, from
bells to doves, as long as the interior of the confetti is cut out.
The inventor received patent 5,911,805.
Patents may be viewed on the Web at www.uspto.gov or may be
ordered through the mail, by patent number, for $3 from the Patent
and Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231.
