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I was disappointed to see the collection of false innuendo and pseudo-science printed by Mr. Matthew Menza in his August 30 attempt to discredit the letter I wrote on August 26 explaining what Smart Meters do. I doubt if anyone cares about the pseudo-science, but the innuendo reflects on my personal integrity, and I care about that very much indeed.
Mr. Menza writes: “Lastly, rumor has it that councilwoman Martin has a hand in the development of smart meter technology to include monetary benefits.”
This is a false and heinous accusation, and what makes it worse is that it is easy to check. It is true that in my private-sector career I worked for no less than three firms (and consulted for another) engaged in developing smart grid technology. I do, in fact, hold several patents in aspects of advanced metering technology. I am proud of that. It was good and needed work.
What is false is that I stand to receive any further “monetary benefits” from my work history.
Many people are unaware that there are two kinds of ownership in intellectual property law. The obvious one is the inventor. That’s what I am, a person whose work resulted in a describable, repeatable piece of technology, process, or design.
The other kind of owner is called the assignee. The assignee is the person or company who owns the monetary and licensing rights to a patent, regardless of who the inventor is.
All the patentable work I have ever done, including the smart grid work, was done for hire by a corporation to whom I agreed to assign the intellectual property rights. They, not I, hired the lawyers, paid the filing fees, and receive the royalties on the intellectual property I created. I am not the assignee on any patents in any of the fields where I created intellectual property. I have no monetary interest at all. I was paid to do the work, and that’s it. (That’s usually how it goes.)
Of the “Smart Grid” concerns that employed me, only one is still a going concern: Aclara. I owned stock in Aclara as part of the employee stock purchase program, but when I retired I rolled that over into a standard, bank-administered mutual fund that I do not manage. I have no idea whether any of my retirement accounts hold any Aclara stock, but I privately hold none. The other companies I worked for were startups which were acquired after I left them. I have ZERO monetary interest in Smart Grid. But, unlike Mr. Menza, I know very well indeed how it works and what it’s good for.
I am not going to take on the hodgepodge of pseudo-scientific jargon and Libertarian fantasy that comprises the rest of Mr. Menza’s letter. If anyone cares to debate it, I invite them to contact me by writing to me directly. My contact information is fully public. The Smart Meter technology that Longmont is deploying is called Revelo. It’s the top of the line, and for what it’s worth, the words “dynamic feedback loop” do not occur in Landis+Gyr’s description of the product.
Marcia Martin
