I think it was this last Monday's USA Today, Curt Jones, (whom I have never met and wouldn't know if I saw him) "inventor" and founder of the Dippin' Dots, the ultra frozen ice cream "bbs" was featured on the front page of the Money section. It was a very detailed story, and the reporter reported it from Paducah. They also visited Metropolis, because they had a picture of the Dippin' Dots store in Superman City.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/entre/2009-05-10-dipp...

I do love ice cream, and I have had Dippin' Dots a couple times, which I found too cold for my taste, although good. I'd take Haagen Das or Ben and Jerry's every time if offered a choice between them or Dippin' Dots. Hand me a cup of Dippin' Dots on a hot day and I'm sure I'd enjoy them!

There were a number of things about Dippin' Dots that I didn't realize. First, I didn't realize that apparently most of their business comes from exporting - particularly to Asia. I also didn't realize that Dippin' Dots was cool with the Santa Cruz folks. I didn't realize that Oprah had Dippin Dots on her show. But I guess they are selling a lot of it all around the world.

If you drive by the Dippin' Dots plant out on the Coleman Road Industrial area, you see what obviously is a pretty sophisticated, and expensive) high quality plant. Shiny, stainless containers and piping look impressive. But it's no secret that they have to get the ice cream really cold, just tasting it shows that. It takes a lot of gizmo and resources to do that. Jones had the gizmo patented, or so he thought.

The article pointed out that the costs of operating were going up. This, in and of itself, probably wouldn't have threatened his business. But the bombshell of the article to me, was that Jones had that patent challenged in court, and lost. That let a number of competitors into the market, and now Dippin' Dots no longer has the market cornered. Costs going up, revenues down, big legal bills - it meant layoffs.

Jones is going to try his gizmo out on other products, like coffee. It sounded a lot like the old freeze dried coffee, if you remember that. I never was much of an instant coffee fan - I like the taste of fresh brewed - the I do recall that a good cup of freeze dried was better than no coffee at the right time.

Maybe Jones has learned about patents and knows now how to get around other people's patents. We all live and die by the law, for all of it's flaws. Sounds like work for lawyers and advertising firms. Good for the economy.

For those of us that are curious about parts of our community that make it into the prominent national spotlight, this was a pretty big one on the spotlight scale - 7.5 out of 10. I came away from the article with a positive view of Jones, all in all, but like I said, I don't know him at all. I hope that he can find a way to reduce his power consumption. Honestly, it doesn't seem to be a "greenhouse gas" friendly business. I don't have figures about their power consumption, but I'm sure, for the size of the business, it's higher than most others of the same or similar size.

Maybe the local media has covered Jones' battle with patent challenges - I don't remember hearing about it. Was it local attorneys defending the patent? Was it local attorneys that prepared the patent application in the first place?

Patent law is very specialized. You need an attorney that can understand the technology enough to articulate it, and explain how the device or system is unique and distinguish it from other similar devices or systems. But federal judges don't really like to get involved in agency stuff, and so, based on my experience of legal work in federal court challenging the Forest Service and other federal agencies, I'm a bit surprised to hear that a patent gets overturned by a judge. I don't know exactly how that works, but I am pretty sure that the error or omission must have been pretty obvious, or the judge wouldn't have gotten involved.

I wonder why all of this wasn't covered more in the local media? Obviously, it's a national story, and a pretty big one. It's going to be interesting to see how Dippin' Dots survives in the years to come. If I was him, I'd be working on making those Dots a little less cold and little softer. They're best when they're just starting to melt together a little, and you can eat them with a spoon. Probably cost less to make them that way, too.

Good luck Mr. Jones. It was very interesting reading about your endeavors.