Richard J. Dalton Jr.
Consumer Watch
March 18, 2007
When Marie Gonzalez of Bellport was scrubbing toilet bowls, a light bulb went off: She realized the surface would be much easier to wipe if the toilet seat's hinges were flush with the surface.
So Gonzalez, who runs a cleaning business, invented a toilet seat with hinges that don't protrude.
She contacted the Patent and Trademark Institute of America, or PTI, a Garden City company that promises to help inventors turn their ideas into products.
Gonzalez paid PTI $1,295 in December 2005 for a book to assess the potential of her invention and then $10,150 two months later to patent the idea.
So far, the only moneymaker has been the Patent and Trademark Institute.
Gonzalez is not alone, according to documents filed earlier this month by the Federal Trade Commission in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
PTI's principal director, Julian Gumpel, 55, of Roslyn Heights, had a previous run-in with the FTC when his company was based in Virginia. The agency filed a lawsuit in 1997 charging him and co-defendants with deceptive acts in violation of the FTC Act: lying to customers that the invention promotion services would make them money. Gumpel, who declined to comment for this article, settled with the FTC in 1998, agreeing not to falsely promote his patent services.
But in recent years, the FTC received complaints about PTI from consumers around the country, including a letter from the New York State Consumer Protection Board asking the FTC to reopen its investigation of Gumpel's activities.
