Xerox workers have 200-plus patents

Sometimes inspiration is lying in an empty parking lot, just ask Robert Loce.

Back when Xerox Corp.'s focus was on copiers and printers, Loce knew that the process centered on shining light on an image. He noticed that light shined bright in the center of an image and faded as the light spread outward. Loce said this was a problem, "so I was trying to figure out, is there some way we can make that (light distribution) more uniform."

"I was walking through the parking lot and I was thinking 'What's a cheaper way to do this?' and I saw a golf tee in the parking lot," Loce said. "Then I thought about how that shape could fit into this three-dimensional imaging system."

Loce designed it and it worked.

"But we didn't end up using it because not too long after that we (Xerox) got into more laser printers," Loce laughed.

The golf tee design was Loce's first patent. Since then, he has worked at Xerox for 34 years and amassed more than 200 patents. Two-hundred is a feat so rare that only two other Xerox workers have it. No one at Bausch + Lomb has that many and Kodak couldn't say if it has inventors with that many patents.

"One hundred is a lot, so 200, that's a substantial feat," said Dominic Ciminello, Rochester Intellectual Property Law Association president.

Globally there are inventors with thousands of patents. However, the United States' most prolific inventor was Thomas Edison at 1,084. Steve Jobs had 484. George Eastman had 35 patents, Kodak confirmed, but his most famous patent created jobs in Monroe County for generations.

Santokh Badesha, another Xerox inventor with 34 years and 200-plus patents, said he sees himself reaching milestone even greater than 200.

"Am I going to get another 200? No, that's too far," said Badesha, who holds 205 and has another 55 applications. "But I do think I will reach 300."

Badesha was born in India. He moved to the United States to teach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Badesha taught there for more than four years, but felt like his scholarly research wasn't solving real-world problems. He joined Xerox in October 1980.

Loce is a hometown boy, a Jefferson High School graduate whose grandparents owned the farmland that eventually was sold and became Rochester Institute of Technology's campus. He's big on mountain climbing and likes to note that he earned his doctorate degree on the same land "that I learned to milk a cow and ride a horse."

In the inventions world, there are different types of patents one can earn. Most people are familiar with utility patents, which the government issues to someone who has devised a new idea, process or product. Inventors can also earn a design patent, which covers all steps, pieces and strategies related to the utility patent.

Loce and Badesha's 200-plus patents are a combination of utility and design patents.

Loce and Badesha, both managers at Xerox, said there have been three culture shifts at Xerox that help them continue inventing and filing patents even after 30 years.

First, in recent years fellow inventors have been more willing to share ideas so a product can eventually make money. For decades inventors have been selfish about sharing, creating a "my idea" mentality that Badesha says slowed or killed inventions. That mentality is slowly going away, he said.

"It's very difficult to have other people have ownership of your idea," Badesha said. "But my experience is if you don't, then it (your idea) is going to take forever and 99 percent of the time, it won't go anywhere."

Aside from more collaborative colleagues, Loce and Badesha said their employer has an inventor-friendly environment.

"It's a culture here to be encouraging each other in inventions," Loce said, even if ideas seem half-baked at first. "They see the positive part and then try to help you fix the things that aren't quite right."

Finally, Xerox has a new line of business: solving everyday hurdles government agencies have with technology.

For most of its creation Xerox has been what Badesha describes as a "putting ink on paper" company through copiers and printers. Xerox still works in that area, but the company has also begun sending scientists to different cities to investigate struggles government agencies have with technology. Xerox thinkers are then tasked with heading back to their laboratories and figuring out solutions.

For example, Loce said he's working with police departments and their surveillance cameras. Officers have to monitor dozens of cameras throughout their shift and Loce is trying to see if he can create a system that notifies authorities when a mugging or robbery is in progress without someone having to stare at the screen for hours.

For years, Xerox inventors solved issues with internal processes and products. But now that the company has opened up to outside organizations, Loce and Badesha say there's plenty of work to do for years to come.

"A lot of the problems come from our interactions out in the world -- real problems that are out there," Loce said. "So we come to work every day trying to solve them."

kjbrooks@rocheste.gannett.com