Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1970 [PAGE 875]

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1970]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

875

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY PATENT COMMITTEE (32) T h e University Patent Committee, with the concurrence of the Chairman of the University Research Board, submits the following reports and recommendations relating to patentable inventions by members of the staff. 1. Use of radiodense fluorocarbon molecules as x-ray contrast material — David M. Long, Jr., Professor of Surgery, and Head of the Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, Medical Center, inventor. The invention consists of the use or application of radiodense fluorocarbon molecules as contrast media in x-ray techniques. Materials now used as contrast materials in medicine have many desirable properties but there are also many undesirable properties such as chemical and biological reactivity which sometimes result in complications and death. Furthermore, the dosage or amounts of these materials that may be used safely is sometimes not enough for adequate x-ray studies. The Committee recommends that the rights of the University in this invention be assigned to the University of Illinois Foundation for study and possible patent application. 2. Selective flame signal modulator — Victor G. Mossotti, Senior Research Chemist, Materials Research Laboratory, Urbana, and Judith Ann Eakin, Assistant Research Chemist, Materials Research Laboratory, Urbana, inventors; developed under the sponsorship of the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The device referred to as the selective flame signal modulator is useful for feeding analytical solutions to a flame light source for the direct determination of metallic impurities in liquid analytical samples. In addition to supplying the analytical flame with a constant solution uptake rate, this device introduces a periodic concentration gradient into the solution fed into the flame. T h e periodic addition of the element of analytical interest into the flame extends the possibility for the retrieval of analytical information from system noise, flame background fluctuations, and spectrally interfering band systems generated by the flame. Thus, the practical applications of this device are twofold: first, the interpretation of the spectrogram is vastly simplified; and second, analytical sensitivities and detection limits are markedly improved. T h e Committee recommends that the rights of the University in this invention be assigned to the University of Illinois Foundation for study and possible patent application, subject to the rights of the sponsoring agency. 3. Method of fixing prosthetic and other devices to bone and other living tissue — William Rostoker, Professor of Metallurgy in Materials Engineering at Chicago Circle, and Jorge Galante, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Medical Center, inventors; developed under the sponsorship of the United States Public Health Service. An invention is claimed for the use of porous aggregates produced from short length, small diameter fibers as a means for the attachment of prosthetic and other devices to live bone and tissue through the growth of the live component into the interconnecting voids of the porus aggregate. Additional advantages are claimed by this invention in providing a fixation mechanism which is not subject to cracking and rapid fracture and which is largely compliant with the surrounding live material. The Committee recommends that the rights of the University in this invention be released to the inventors, subject to the rights of the sponsoring agency. 4. Stabilimetric telemetry cushion — Robert L. Sprague, Director of the Children's Research Center and Associate Professor of Psychology, Urbana, Stuart Yoos, Assistant Electronic Engineer at the Children's Research Center, and Estil Carter, Electronic Engineering Assistant at the Coordinated Science Laboratory, Urbana, inventors; developed under the sponsorship of the United States Public Health Service. Interest in the activity level of children, particularly children in a school situation, has been the concern of research for some time. We have shown that it is possible to control the activity level of institutionalized mentally retarded children by using appropriate behavior modification procedures and a stabilimetric cushion. The reason for developing the stabilimetric telemetry cushion was to permit research on activity level of school children in a classroom situation without the necessity of stringing wires from the cushions to the control equipment. The Committee recommends that the rights of the University in this invention be released to the inventors, subject to the rights of the sponsoring agency.