Frequently Asked Questions

1. Where can I find a grant application?
2. I have a grant request to fund an E-Team program at our college or university. Who should I contact regarding this request?
3. What are E-Teams?
4. Where can I get more information about how to get a patent on my idea?
5. Where can I find out more about famous inventors?
6. How many patents does Jerome Lemelson hold?
7. What are The Lemelson-MIT Awards?
8. What is The Lemelson Center?
9. What is the LATDC?
10. What is the NCIIA?
11. What is the Lemelson Center at the University of Nevada?
12. Where can I see some of Jerome Lemelson's many inventions?
13. I'm interested in the latest innovations in Assistive Technology. Are there any web sites you recommend where I might find more information?

Q. Where can I find a grant application?

A. The Lemelson Foundation makes grants only to preselected charitable and educational organizations and does not accept unsolicited requests for funds. Additionally, The Foundation does not provide funding for protection or commercialization of intellectual property.

Q. I have a grant request to fund an E-Team program at our college or university. Who should I contact regarding this request?

A. Certain programs funded by The Lemelson Foundation offer grant programs, each with their own specific funding criteria. To fund an E-Team program, you should contact the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) to request a grant application.

Q. What are E-Teams?

A. In Jerome Lemelson's words, "...an E-Team is a group of students who train to go into business and develop products in the future while at school." The E stands for both Excellence and Entrepreneurship.

Q. Where can I get more information about how to get a patent on my idea?

A. The Lemelson-MIT Program's web site has a great page with dozens of links to sites about invention and innovation.

Q. Where can I find out more about famous inventors?

A. The Invention Dimension section of the Lemelson-MIT Program's web site is devoted to famous or influential inventors, where you can search by both inventor and invention. The url is: http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/archive.html.

The Smithsonian's Lemelson Center features in-depth articles on living inventors who have participated in its "Innovative Lives" program for middle-school children; see http://www.si.edu/lemelson/centerpieces/ilives/index.html.

Q. How many patents does Jerome Lemelson hold?

A. Over 600 and the number continues to grow! The Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center located at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History has a web page which features a database of patents awarded to Jerome Lemelson.

Once you obtain a patent number from the Lemelson Center's site you may search the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) web site for more detailed information regarding the individual patent.

Q. What are The Lemelson-MIT Awards?

A. The Lemelson-MIT Awards consist of the largest cash prize for invention in the United States, the annual half-million dollar Lemelson-MIT Prize, as well as the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability. Recipients of the Awards represent a wide range of inventing accomplishments in the medicine and health care, computing, technology, environmental, engineering, industrial and consumer products fields.

Q. What is The Lemelson Center?

A. The mission of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History is to document, interpret, and disseminate information about invention and innovation; to encourage inventive creativity in young people; and to foster an appreciation for the central role invention and innovation play in the history of the United States. The Center offers a diverse array of symposia, educational outreach programs, exhibits, research opportunities, and documentation projects.

Q. What is LATDC?

A. The Lemelson Assistive Technology Development Center (LATDC) at Hampshire College is a test bed of invention and innovation in the area of Assistive Technology. The center is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and enables E-Teams made up of Hampshire College students to design, and patent new developments in Assistive Technology. Several E-Team projects that have originated at LATDC have matured into successful assistive technology devices and spawned successful companies.

Q. What is the NCIIA?

A. The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) facilitates grant requests from E-Team programs at colleges around the country. In addition, the goal of the NCIIA under the direction of Phil Weilerstein is to teach innovation by holding conferences and symposia for educators across the country to learn the latest techniques in teaching innovation in the classroom.

Q. What is the Lemelson Center at the University of Nevada?

A. The Lemelson Center at the University of Nevada, Reno teaches Jerome Lemelson's vision of invention and innovation. The Center, based in the School of Electrical Engineering, makes invention a core part of the curriculum. To graduate each student must learn to invent and innovate, as a member of an E-Team.

Each E-Team forms a mock company with real corporate structure, bylaws, budgets, marketing strategies and a business plan and sales model. The company's goal is to go through the process of taking their invention to market. Students raise money to pay for things like legal fees and design prototypes by selling equity in their company. Some exciting new product ideas have emerged from these mock companies, with potential for success as actual products and companies.

Q. Where can I see some of Jerome Lemelson's many inventions?

A. There is little in our contemporary world that has not been touched by the creative genius of Jerome Lemelson. Bar code readers and cordless phones, cassette players and camcorders, automated manufacturing systems, even crying baby dolls -- these devices and hundreds of others that have shaped our lives derive from the inventions and innovations of this remarkable man. With more than six hundred patents to his name, Jerome Lemelson is one of the most prolific American inventors of all time, and in the sheer range of his ideas -- from cutting-edge medical and industrial technologies to novelties, gadgets and toys -- undoubtedly the most versatile.

Q. I'm interested in the latest innovations in Assistive Technology. Are there any web sites you recommend where I might find more information?

A. Visit the Lemelson Assistive Technology Development Center (LATDC) Web site as a start. The LATDC also holds conferences and symposia on the subject of assistive technology, which may be of interest.