The “featured image” is me with me with Anka in the background when we were on Deco Drive. They wanted to interview her anyway because she had just been in Playboy.
When I got my second patent, the Ergonomic Seating Cushion, which I called the Buttpillow, the name was so shocking that I ended up on TV and the cover of the Miami Herald Business Section, and several other newspapers.
The reason I invented the Pillow with Cantilever Supports (also called the Buttpillow) and the Ergonomic Seating Cushion (an improvement on the Pillow with Cantilever Supports) was so that anyone with a sitting-related problem — whether the individual was suffering with hemorrhoids, low back pain, sciatica, herniated spinal disc, prostatitis, pressure sores, vaginal pain or tailbone pain — could use the cushion without everyone knowing what it was being used for. If you bring a doughnut pillow to work, people will make fun of you. . .at least that is what happened to me.
It is also for reduction of risk factors that lead to musculoskeletal disorders or MSDs as well as DVTs.
I found out seven years later that I had gotten several patents my lawyers told me I didn’t get when I received notices from the USPTO that it was time to pay my maintenance fees on the patents I didn’t know I had gotten; or, even worse, that I had lost my patent because I didn’t pay the maintenance fee when I didn’t know I had it in the first place.
I guess the lawyers had to prove they were right: When I first started trying to patent products, they would say things to me like, “You are just a stupid court reporter; you are not going to be successful.”
I am seeking an open cell foam manufacturer in the United States. I have until 2023 on this one patent and it has been quoted a lot lately by other inventors to the USPTO, so it is kind of now or the lawyers will be right. . .I will never be successful.
Anka in Inventor’s Digest for Buttpillow (my name is misspelled. . .it should be Loomos):