Readers who have been following faithfully along with the draft online publication of Defying Gravity: The Parallel Universe of T. Townsend Brown will hopefully recall how this project began:  In the summer of 2002, I received an anonymous e-mail which first brought Brown to myThat e-mail also said "…smarter image is selling an air purifier onHe never collected the royalties for that either." The writer of this message was obviously referring to The Sharper Image, and the "Ionic Breeze" air purifier which has been relentlessly marketed via TeeVee infomercials for quite some time now.  Readers of the chapter entitled "How Many Generals Does It Take?" will recognize the Sharper Image product as undeniably similar to the device that Townsend Brown was demonstrating in the mid 1960s. So I have had it in the back of my mind for quite some time that at some point, I would approach The Sharper Image and ask them what they know about the

"paternity" of their product. I finally got off my duff a few weeks ago and contacted the Public Relations Department at The Sharper Image corporate headquarters in San Francisco. Of course, the “public relations” office doesn’t really want to have any contact with “the public,” so my call was answered by a machine. machine why I was calling and what I hoped to learn regarding the origins of the technology behind their very successful product. I left my phone number and my e-mail The next morning I received an e-mail from Suzie Stephens in the Sharper Image Public Relations office that sounded like it was a copy-paste job from her folder of “boiler-plate responses to impertinent questions:” you for taking the time to contact The Sharper Image Public Relations.  appreciate your interest in our Best Selling Ionic Breeze Air Purifier. This is a Sharper Image Design product that was developed in house.  more information on the Ionic Breeze and how it works, please feel free to

for thorough information on the product and its technology or contact me if you Well, I did contact Suzie via e-mail that sameAnd, rather than be circumspect about what I was after, I explained precisely what I was interested in: finding if indeed there is a trail of patents and developments that would lead from today’s ubiquitous Ionic Breeze products back to the work that Townsend Brown demonstrated back in the 1960s. That was nearly a month ago and Suzie still hasn’tI don’t guess she’s got “boiler plate” response for actual questions — especially when they challenge The Sharper Image’s frequent boast that their products were "invented here." However, my research assistant, Elizabeth Helen Drake — who is not known to let go of any subject once she gets the bit in her teeth – seized the opportunity and  delivered all the info I could possibly require on the subject. It was easy, thanks to Google and a couple of

Elizabeth started with a search for “invention ionic breeze,” which produced, among other results, this page on The Sharper Image website, which clearly cites the patent on which the Ionic Breeze technology (U.S. Patent No. 4,789,801) is exclusive to the Ionic Breeze SilentIt eliminates the need for a motor or fan for air circulation and it is this invention that allows Ionic Breeze to feature totally silentpure air ontario duct cleaning operation and ultra-low energy use….the process is proprietary and patented …sharper image hybrid gp air purifier The solid-state electronics use an electrical charge to create air that isluna air purifier densely packed with positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons.

(An ion is an atom with a positive or negative charge.) "electronic linear propulsion" or "electrokinetic" circulation, is dead silent. Finally, a patent number! info in hand, it was not hard for Elizabeth to find what we’ve been looking for. number of websites that provide access to patent files (not the least among them the patent office’s own website), but Elizabeth founded all she needed at a handy site called “Free Patents Online,” where she was easily able to pull up the patent in question. Patent #4,789,801 for “Electrokinetic transducing methods and apparatus and systems comprising or utilizing the same”  was applied for on April 3, 1987 by Lee, Jimmy L., granted on December 6, 1988, and assigned to a company called “Zenion Industries” of Rohnert Park, California.  (Curiously, the law firm that handled the filing for Mr. Lee was “Townsend and Townsend.” Around here, that’s known as a "Cosmic Ha-Ha.")

For our purposes, the most intriguing component of this patent is the section on “prior art,” There, in unimpeachable black-and-white, is precisely the information we were looking for: Electrokinetic transducers and apparatus and systems comprising the same have been known for many years. electrokinetic transducers of the "diode" or "two-array" type, and systems comprising the same, are disclosed in U.S. Pat. 3,018,394, issued to Thomas Townsend Brown on Jan. 23, 1962, and in U.S. Pat. No. 2,949,550, issued to Thomas Townsend Brown on Aug. 16, 1960. electrokinetic transducers of the "triode" or "three-array" 3,518,462, issued to Thomas Townsend Brown on June 30, 1970. There you have it, folks: the “prior art” on which the patent for the Ionic Breeze is based consists of not one, not two, but THREE patents issued to Townsend Brown in the But wait… there’s more. One paragraph later, the patent states: The prior art teaches that such electrokinetic

apparatus may be used as an electric fan, when the exciting voltage applied to said electrodes is continuous, direct-current voltage, or may be used as a loudspeaker, when the exciting direct-current voltage applied to said electrodes is modulated in accordance with the desired sound output from the Here you see both the “fan” and the “loudspeaker” applications of the technology, the latter describing the apparatus  that blew Morgan away when he first saw and heard it in Dr. Brown’s study at Ashlawn in the fall of 1964. Return with us now to the Sharper Image page cited above, and see how that patent language, the page says, The inventor writes, "Electrokinetic transducers and apparatus and systems comprising the same have been known for many years. The prior art teaches that such electrokinetic apparatus may be used as an Can you see what’s missing from that paragraph? of the patent that cites the prior art — the part that names Thomas Townsend

Brown three times — has been conveniently excised, skipped right over, before the language from later in the text is resumed. Consequently, Townsend Brown’s seminal contribution to this popular and successful product has been reduced to the empty space between two sentences. And thus is another Great American Inventor is swept under the rug of history while others go on to reap the benefits of their In fairness to the inventors, developers, manufacturers and marketers of the Ionic Breeze air purifiers, I thought it would be appropriate to speak to Jim Lee, the man whose name is attached to the patent cited on The Sharper Image website, before publishing the results of our little fact-finding expedition regarding the true origins of these products. It took a couple of weeks to finally get through, but on Monday December 5, I spoke with Mr. Lee by phone for about thirty minutes. Nothing he said dissuades me from the conclusions reached above, but it was nevertheless an interesting and illuminating conversation.