Chuck Hoberman’s apartment, just south of SoHo in New York City, is littered with little machines that do amazing things. Scattered between his front door and kitchen are: a set of tiny paper wads that unfold into large, pleated arches and tubes; a bundle of folded plastic panels no bigger than a hatbox that expands into a 5-foot-tall, 2-person tent; a 6- inch-high black bellows with a handle that grows into a 21-inch-high briefcase; a spherical aluminum hedgehog, 16 inches across, that swells into a 6-foot-wide Buckminster Fuller-like geodesic sphere.
Designing these models is what Hoberman does for a living. Each one represents an idea--a patented idea--about the similarities between objects we call structures and those we call mechanisms. In Hoberman’s view the two can be one and the same. The models he designs reveal ways in which devices as small as a matchbox or as large as a building could transform themselves, changing their shape or size, simply by transferring motion from one part to all their other parts.
Sometime in the future these models could become prototypes for objects ranging from collapsible luggage to portable storm shelters to stadium roofs that open and close like the iris of an eye. So far, only a few of the models have shown any promise of immediate practical use. The rest are elegant and economical expressions of their principles--no more or less. For Hoberman, however, that isn’t enough.
I wouldn’t be happy just to get paid for my ideas, he says. I’m interested in seeing these put into practice.
One of the people Hoberman is counting on to help him put those ideas into practice is Leonard Horn, Esquire, a Brooklyn-reared and - accented veteran of 40 years of patent law whom Hoberman unabashedly admires. I have three patents, and Lenny is always saying, ‘You know, you’re not supposed to get patents just for fun. You’re supposed to make money with them.’ He’s my mentor, so I’m finally trying to do what he says.
