8A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016
STICKY LAWSUIT
$400M dispute
lingers over
Post-it inventor
By CURT ANDERSON
AP Legal Affairs Writer
Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo
FORT LAUDERDALE,
Fla. — Alan Amron has
invented a battery-powered
squirt gun, a digital photo
frame, even a laser system that
may someday provide a vis-
ible ¿rst-down line for fans
inside NFL stadiums. He holds
40 U.S. patents, but he’s most
interested in an invention for
which he gets no credit: the
Post-it Note, that ubiquitous
sticky-back product made into
a worldwide success by the 3M
Company.
Amron, 67, says he
invented what he called the
Press-on Memo in 1973, a
full year before 3M scientists
developed what later became
known as the Post-it Note.
Although Amron settled a pre-
vious lawsuit against 3M, he’s
suing again in federal court in
Fort Lauderdale. He says the
company breached its previous
agreement not to take credit.
The settlement is con¿dential.
Now Amron wants $400
million in damages — and
something he says is even
more important to him.
“l just want them to admit
that l am the inventor and that
they will stop saying that they
are the inventor,” Amron said in
a recent interview. “Every sin-
gle day that they keep claiming
they invented it damages my
reputation and defames me.”
3M, based in Maplewood,
Minnesota, is one of the 30
companies that make up the
Dow Jones Industrial Aver-
age on the New York Stock
Exchange. The maker of
Scotch tape, Ace bandages,
sandpaper, ¿lms, of¿ce prod-
ucts, window insulation, paint
remover and hundreds of other
products earned more than
$30 billion in revenue in 2015,
according to the company’s
website.
The company says Post-it
Notes were invented by 3M
scientists Arthur Fry and Spen-
cer Silver, both members of
the National Inventors Hall of
Fame. Silver came up with the
adhesive — one that could be
used over and over yet not mar
surfaces to which it attached
— and Fry the idea of using it
for the small, yellow squares of
paper to become sticky-back
notes.
“3M developed Post-it
Notes without any input or
inspiration from Mr. Amron
and it is false and mislead-
ing for him to state or suggest
that he created, invented, or
had any role in the product’s
development,” said company
spokeswoman Donna L. Flem-
ing Runyon in an email. The
company declined to comment
further on the lawsuit.
Fry, now 84 and retired,
is named as a defendant in
Amron’s lawsuit, but Silver is
not. Fry did not respond to an
email and a phone message
seeking comment. Silver also
is retired, Runyon said.
The history of inven-
tion is full of people com-
peting for credit for the same
idea, and often things come
about because smart people
are working separately. Take
the microchip: Texas Instru-
Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio,
R-Fla., left, answers a question, as Republican presi-
dential candidate, businessman Donald Trump listens,
during the Republican presidential debate sponsored by
CNN, Salem Media Group and the Washington Times at
the University of Miami, Thursday, in Coral Gables, Fla.
Republican
candidates clash
over party unity
AP Photo/Alan Diaz
Alan Amron shows his inventions, in West Palm Beach, Fla., Monday. Amron is suing 3M
Company in a South Florida federal court in a dispute over who invented the ubiquitous
Post-it Note.
3M Corporate Communications/AP
Spencer Silver, left and Art Fry, right, hold a Post-It Note
pad. Alan Amron, an inventor with 40 patents, claims that
he invented what he called the Press-On Memo in 1973, a
year before Fry and Silver, 3M scientists, developed what
later became known as the Post-It Note. Amron is suing
3M for $400 million in damages.
AP Photo/Alan Diaz
Alan Amron talks to a reporter in West Palm Beach, Fla.
ments and Fairchild Semicon-
ductor battled for a decade in
court over who came ¿rst and
deserved the patent, deciding
amid the wrangling it was best
to work out a licensing deal for
both companies.
Amron said his idea in 1973
came about with chewing gum.
He was looking for a way to
stick a note on his refrigera-
tor for his wife and used gum,
providing inspiration for the
adhesive he would use on his
Press-on Memo. That year
he took the sticky notes to a
New York trade show and met
brieÀy with two 3M execu-
tives, Amron said, but nothing
came of the meeting.
Fry and Silver came up
with what 3M originally called
the Press ‘n’ Peel memo pad
in 1974, but it wasn’t brought
to the market until 1977 and
didn’t really take off until
1980, when it was renamed the
Post-it Note. It’s now one of
the top-selling items in 3M’s
consumer products division,
which in 2015 earned $4.4 bil-
lion for all products, company
¿gures show.
Post-it Notes have become
so iconic that in the 1997
movie “Romy and Michele’s
High School Reunion,” the
title characters, played by
Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sor-
vino, claim credit for invent-
ing them to impress their for-
mer classmates.
It was also in 1997 that
Amron sued 3M claiming he
was the true inventor. The case
was settled, and Amron agreed
to release the company from
any future claims, which intel-
lectual property lawyers say
could make his new Florida
lawsuit dif¿cult to win.
“I would predict what he
has left perhaps is the enforce-
ment of a settlement agreement
but not the claims he is pur-
suing,” said Miami attorney
Jeffrey Feldman, who is not
involved in the case. “The ¿rst
thing I would want to know
is whether or not there was
an agreement between them
regarding who was allowed to
say what.”
Amron said the agreement
was that neither could claim
credit because, years earlier,
a Swiss inventor had suppos-
edly devised a similar prod-
uct. But that turned out to be
a less-useful adhesive, not the
entire sticky note, and Amron
said he felt 3M used the Swiss
tale to trick him into the settle-
ment — and is now breaching
that deal by claiming credit for
the product.
No trial date is set for
Amron’s lawsuit, which sur-
vived a 3M initial attempt last
month to get it thrown out
based in part on the prior set-
tlement of similar claims. A
federal judge has ordered both
sides into mediation to possi-
bly reach a settlement and set
various legal deadlines through
December of this year.
Meanwhile, 3M contin-
ues to invent things. Accord-
ing to the company’s year-end
2015 statement, 565 U.S. pat-
ents were granted to 3M —
bringing its total to more than
105,000.
By STEVE PEOPLES
and JULIE PACE
Associated Press
MIAMI — New divisions
erupted in the Republican Par-
ty’s presidential contest on Fri-
day amid competing calls for
party unity as the GOP scram-
bled to blunt Donald Trump’s
momentum.
Trump intensi¿ed his
insistence that party leaders
embrace his candidacy while
unveiling a signi¿cant new
ally at a press conference at his
Palm Beach resort. Standing at
Trump’s side, retired neurosur-
geon Ben Carson endorsed his
former GOP rival and warned
that a failure to rally behind
him would “fracture the party
in an irreparable way.”
Carson said Friday that
he and Trump “buried the
hatchet” after months of polit-
ical wrangling, describing the
front-runner as a “very cere-
bral” person.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio,
¿ghting for his political life
ahead of his home state’s piv-
otal Tuesday primary, charged
that Trump himself could
destroy the party given the
many Republicans who vow
never to support the New York
real estate mogul.
“I certainly think it would
fracture it,” Rubio said of a
Trump nomination on CBS’s
“This Morning. “There is a
very signi¿cant number of
Republicans that will never
vote for him. And you can’t
win unless the party’s united.”
The fresh signs of GOP
chaos follow a surprisingly
civil debate Thursday night
days ahead of high-stakes pri-
mary elections in Florida and
Ohio.
A restrained Trump used
the latest presidential debate
to send a none-too-subtle mes-
sage to Republicans still wary
of his insurgent candidacy:
“Be smart and unify.” Cruz
and Rubio toned down their
rhetoric, too, concluding that
all-out attacks against Trump
didn’t work.
“I can’t believe how civil
it’s been up here,” Trump
declared at one point in Thurs-
day’s face-off of the GOP’s
¿nal four.
The candidates now charge
out of Miami with four days
left to make their ¿nal argu-
ments before next week’s
all-important big-state presi-
dential primaries.
Trump was heading to
St. Louis and Chicago after
appearing with Carson; John
Kasich headed for his must-
win home state of Ohio; Rubio
made his home-stand in Flor-
ida and Cruz was shuttling
from Florida to Illinois.
In all, 367 Republican del-
egates are at stake Tuesday in
Illinois, Missouri, North Car-
olina, Ohio and the Northern
Mariana Islands, a delegate
haul that could go a long way
toward determining the GOP
nominee.
Democrats Hillary Clin-
ton and Bernie Sanders, too,
will be competing on Tues-
day, with Clinton out to regain
momentum after her startling
loss to Sanders in Michigan
this week.
Trump’s rivals, in a desper-
ate scramble to halt his march
to the nomination, gradually
ramped up their criticism as
the latest debate wore on.
Cruz, eager to cement his
position as the party’s last best
alternative to Trump, had a
string of criticisms of the GOP
front-runner, too, saying Àatly
at one point: “His solutions
don’t work.”
When it was over, Trump
pronounced it an “elegant”
discussion. He was clearly
intent on projecting a less
bombastic — and more pres-
idential — image.
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