Invention on Demand

摘要

A Fab Four partnership brainstorms boisterously to spice up new but mundane products Most Tuesday mornings, you can find four 60-something men dressed casually in jeans and sweaters gathered around a table in a rented conferred around a table in a rented conference room in Lexington, Mass, Armed with the essential tools of invention-coffee, bagels, and rapier wit-they alternately kibitz and rapier wit-hey alternately kibitz and argue with each other to come up with better ideas for applying technology to new products. The stars of these animated brainstorming sessions-Richard Pavelle, George Freedman, Sol Aisenberg, and A. Ze'ev Hed-have to teir names more than 300 products, 130 issued and pending patents, and more than 50 licensing arrangements for such gizmos as the 10-second hand dryer, a credit card-sized calculator, a microwave popcorn popper, and a more effective sunscreen. What these products lack in glamour they make up for in royalties from several hundred million dollars in sales of their products by companies like Raytheon, Canon, Casio, Lockheed, and General Electric.