FRED MEDART
MANUFACTURING Co.

 

 

 

POTOMAC AND DE KALB STREETS SAINT Louis, Mo.

eee Sebueren wanes September 19, 1939

Dr. Forrest C. Allen
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas

Dear Phog;

The following subject is, aS you will promptly note, a very serious one, and
I am anxious to get your complete opinion on it.

Last Thursday and Friday I was in Chicago and saw Porter in connection with
the convex basketball backboard of modified size. I gave him the voting by
the coaches at the various Goaching Schools this summer, and there was a total
of 66% of the coaches voting in favor of the convex ideas This data, together
with what had come direct to Porter from many parts of the country, indicated
that the convex backboard was very much in favor; and surprising as it may
seem, Porter said it looked as if the convex idea would be favorably acted on
by the Rules Committee, although he qualified that statement by saying that
he could not guarantee that would happen at the next meeting or the ore fol-
lowing, for that matter, although it was not beyond the realm of possibility
that the Rules Committee would pass on the convex idea favorably next March.

That brought up the question of patents, and at this point we encountered some-
thing that was extremely disconcerting to us. Porter wanted to know what we
had in the way of patents and I frankly told him that we were attempting to get
a basic patent on the convex idea, and he told me that if we were issued a pat-
ent of that kind he felt confident we did not have one chance in a million of
getting the Rules Committee to approve the convex board because they could not,
in that way, set us up as being the one and only concern in the United States
from which these boards could be purchased. I anticipated something like this
and told him that we would be glad to give him, in writing, a release from any
infringement for any school that wanted to build a convex board in their own
woodshop for their own use, and further, that we had already agreed to license
one or two of our competitors to manufacture convex boards so we would not be
the one amd only source of supply. All of this, of course, being predicated on
our obtaining a patent, which we have not received at this writing.

Notwithstanding the above assurances, Porter remained unchanged in his opinion,
and while very friendly and co-operative, he could not see any way out for us
if we are granted patent protection on the convex idea.

I am sure you can appreciate that this puts us in the "nine hole" without a
question. In a further discussion wit rter while in Chicago, he said he
had been giving the matter some thought, that possibly we would be willing to
turn the patent over to the Rules Committee, relinquishing any hold on the pat-
ent, and in that way gain what we could in the way of publicity, i.e., aS having

STEEL LOCKERS —_ STEEL WARDROBES____STEEL SHELVING____GYMNASIUM APPARATUS____GYM SEATS____BASKETBALL BACKSTOPS____PLAYGROUND APPARATUS
ee

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