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Deloris Ragsdale Elliott (right) gives Human Rights Commission Executive Director Stanley Beauchamp a few tips on seeking a patent. |
Deloris Ragsdale Elliott had an active imagination as a child growing up in Paducah, always asking questions about anything and everything, she said.
The ability to ask, “what if,” helped turn into a patented invention an idea Elliott had about a better way to serve restaurant customers.
“We all have ideas,” Elliott said before speaking at the Story of African-America Inventions presentation at West Kentucky Community & Technical College Thursday, “Ideas are everywhere. It’s just who submits them to the U.S. Patent Office first.”
Elliott, a clinical social worker and Paducah Tilghman graduate, said she and some friends were thinking about starting a business after watching a television program in the late 1990s. Speaking to more than 40 people about the challenges of finding the right product, she stressed the need to persevere in the pursuit of dreams. Her quest for a patent for her idea took three years, she said. “It was just the right people, at the right place, and the right time,” she said. “But we also had to keep at it.”
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Deloris Ragsdale Elliott |
Elliot, chief executive officer of Dining U Control, Inc., said she saw a need, figured out what was needed to meet that need, and then was successfully able to get her idea – a wireless maitre d’ system for restaurants - patented through the U.S. Patent Office. Though she was not able to discuss in detail her invention, she said the restaurant software idea would be beta tested by the end of March.
WKCTC along with the McCracken County Public Library and the City of Paducah Fire Department sponsored the presentation on African-American inventions. Organizer Jipaum Askew-Robinson, director of cultural diversity at WKCTC, said people would be surprised to learn the many items in today’s society that were invented by African-Americans. Among African-Americans who have successfully received patents for their inventions include:
· Frederick M. Jones in 1949 for the refrigerated truck
· Lloyd Ray in 1897 for an improved dust pan
· Thomas J. Martin in 1872 for the fire extinguisher
· John Lee Love in 1897 for an improved pencil sharpener
· Mary B. Kenner in 1982 for the bathroom tissue holder
· Madam C. J. Walker in 1905 for African-American haircare products. |
