CHANGES - insider blows the whistle on the United Inventors Association

insider blows the whistle on the United Inventors Association (Part Two)

May 28, 2013

If anyone would have told me in the beginning what doing what I have done would have such an impact on my personal life, my family, my friends, I cant be sure I would have done this, as some of you may know, while I was still working for the UIA, have endured multiple back surgeries, they have me on pain killers that lately don't even seem to work, and in the middle of all this I am told by my doctors, if my stress levels are not put under control, it is going to kill me.

I want to thank everyone for the support they have offered and advise I have held close to my heart from people I do not even know who actually care.

The reason for Part 2 of this is to put it all together, in the original post people shared their stories, offered their support and done everything they could to help, for that I am forever grateful.

So from my original letter:"Many of you go to the UIA website to look for corporate sponsors that you might want to do business with. In some cases, you would be better off doing a Google search. There are some important facts that you probably are unaware of.
During the annual board meeting at the end of January 2013, the United Inventors Association CEASED certification of their sponsor companies because certification creates liability for the UIA. However they failed to offer you, the inventor in need of assistance, the courtesy of informing you that they had removed this safety net. The UIA board members preferred to allow you to trust that they were performing their due diligence with the companies who received their seal of membership for their websites and on the UIA website. In reality, the United Inventors Association was no longer performing any such service."

Warren tuttle replied to this letter publicly by saysing:"On the issue of UIA sponsorship addressed in the Email. The UIA Board voted in February to change our corporate certification sponsorship program to a corporate sponsorship program. We did this for several reasons, not the least of which involved companies outside the UIA questioning the validity of any organization preforming an official certification process. Additionally, the UIA was acting on the advice of legal counsel who advised us that a certification process could expose the organization to legal liability. A portion of the organization’s funding comes from corporate members, however our focus on the needs of the individual inventor remains our primary goal"
Warrens letter confirmed exactly what I had told the membership, yet and even to date, The UIA does not go out to publicly apologize for not letting the UIA community know about these changes, how these changes affect the UIA member going on to the site looking for quality companies or as they were never told, "Certified Companies"
Next in Warrens Letter he states
" I can assure everyone that the UIA cares deeply about who we are associated with and will continue to carefully screen all corporate sponsorship applicants."

As you know I was the Director of Corporate Membership services, I contacted or was contacted by companies who wished to align their company with the UIA, in this next post I have no choice but to protect both the author and the company as I would be more than happy to explain after i contact both parties involved..

"Hi All,

It has come to my attention that XXXXX XXXXX is now a member or sponsor of the UIA. His company's name is XXX. He is the XXXXX. He runs the company but XXX owns it.

I have mentioned his name to Mark months ago.

He is a very unethical businessman that preys on people and companies that want to get into retail.

He has burned bridges in my circle with distribution companies, brokers and past clients (I happen to know people in all three categories).

If you'd like to conference, I can explain further.

Best Regards,

Deleted to protect the privacy of the author"

This person who wrote the letter is not a part of the executive Committee, but this company is one of the companies that one of the executive committee had a real issue with, to the point of requesting a conference call that I was a part of, while I am not a voting member of the committee, I was included in the call the member of the EC (Executive Committee) Valid points were brought up as to why this specific company should nt be a member and we should not allow them to sponsor, after the call I was instructed to send it back out for a secondary vote, to my shock, the original person who had the problem with the company voted a resounding NO! the rest of the votes that came in, amazingly came in as all YESes.

I bring this up due to the statement that was signed Warren Tuttle "" I can assure everyone that the UIA cares deeply about who we are associated with and will continue to carefully screen all corporate sponsorship applicants."

Does this appear to you that the UIA had the best interest of the inventor involved, or was it the 3000.00 in cash flow that the UIA would receive as a result of allowing this company in?

Now Back to my original email. I stated "While they were not allowed to have the mailing list at their discretion, we would send out promotional mailings for this company to the inventor members of the UIA. If a company wants to access our members the only requirement is PAYMENT. Special programs were designed for patron sponsors at a cost of $250.00 per email to have anything at they desired sent to all of you. This is basically a “pay to play” agenda..

There are 3 levels of membership in the structure of the program I was put in charge of, we had a platinum Membership that cost 5000.00

a small business platinum Membership that cost 3000.00

and a Patron membership which was deemed a donation level membership

the 3000.00 membership and the 5000.00 are exactly the same with the only exception of what UIA badge the company was given to use on their websites. and even the ROI was even the same for those levels. (while I may misunderstand what I read, its my understanding for a 501c3 non profit educational foundation, they are not allowed to offer an ROI (return on Investment) I will get back into this topic later in this blog. Now the Patron Membership the 500.00 had NO ROI attached to it, so in my next post from an actual email of a patron sponsor. the offer made to them mark told me to offer it and see if they would go for it.

Hello Joe,

I just wanted to let you know that the show organizers of the xxxxxxx agreed to the offer. Just to summarize you will cover two 2-mailings for us to your 13,000 members under a Patron membership including the use of the UIA logo for a fee of $1,000.00 US.

Can you please confirm the above, then I will send you the address to whom the invoice should be issued to, since it will be in the name of Inventions Geneva.

Thanks,

xxxxxxx xxxxxx

This company was allowed to pay 250.00 for each email it sent out advertising their event, totalling 500.00 above and beyond their Patron Membership. essentially if they PAID, they could access the UIA membership.

Next in my original email I claimed "The UIA website has not been updated and no new material has been added since I joined this organization." well you can go to the site and see for yourself, also on that front if you refer to the board minutes they state Joe is working on a new website, I was never compensated for this work, and can show the changes I made to make improvements on updating the website, this project was completely outside of the scope of my job, which now I find out I was simply a volunteer. - more proof against that to come soon.

and finally in my original email I claimed"

I have had personal conversations with Mark Reyland, the Executive Director of the United Inventors Association, during which he explained that he was duplicating a product another inventor had only recently successfully brought to the consumer market. Mark Reyland, the EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the UIA made DEMANDS that this inventor show him the claims on the patent the inventor held. He has even asked me to do CAD design work for a product that I now believe he was trying to at least directly interfere with the success of, if not outright steal .

The person Mark did this to has written her own story about it, with permission I am posting it here next

PLEASE READ THIS STORY CAREFULLY, IT WILL SHED ALOT OF LIGHT ONTO MY FINAL CLAIM IN MY ORIGINAL LETTER

Answers to Questions Regarding Mark Reyland Redesigning Inventors Product

at 11:32 AM Posted by Lesia Farmer

Hello,

I am at the forefront of this issue of Mark Reyland redesigning an inventor's product. Why you ask? Because I am Lesia Farmer, the Lesia Farmer that Mark redesigned my "Trap Door Colander"

There are a million questions regarding Warren Tuttle, Mark Reyland, Lifetime Brands, and the UIA coming in, and I need to clear up the facts of the story. Please read this story in its entirety, as I need to clear up the name's of the innocent people/companies involved here.

Here are the clear facts for anyone who wants to take the time to read:

Several months ago, I was contacted by Mark Reyland who had a new design to my Trap Door Colander. He asked me what I thought of the product "I explained to Mark that I thought my patent application covered his design" and honestly I was not a big fan of the product, but that is the one I wanted him to stay with out of fear of what it could do to my colander which was just beginning to barely make traction in retail.

I then spoke to Warren Tuttle, who called to fill me in on the fact that Mark was working on a colander, and had asked for it to be submitted to Lifetime Brands. Warren at that time explained to me that it was his contractual responsibility to submit products to them, but that in fact he would proceed with caution on my behalf. Warren also said he had explained to Mark that he needed to in fact get in touch with me because of the ethical issue at hand I assume. Mark did in fact contact me via phone, and once again I explained that I felt my patent application covered his design. He proceeded to explain to me that I did not have an actual patent, and that all I had was a patent application, which in fact was true. He said that only way he would know whether he needed to include me was by seeing my patent claims, and really pushed I show them. We got into a bit of what I consider a mild disagreement, and we at the end agreed I would contact my patent attorney. At that point I was advised not to have any more discussions with Mark about my patent. So that is what I did, no more contact.

At that point Warren Tuttle did in fact what his obligation was to do, and that was to submit Mark's version of the colander to Lifetime Brands. Warren kept me in the loop, and did come back and tell me that he had shown it, but because of the complicated issues he advised Lifetime Brands it may not be a good idea to move forward. Lifetime Brands in fact turned the new colander design down. All I can say is "what a sigh of relief!!"

At that point I also had Joe Fournier contact me that was working on the CADS for Mark, because he was a friend of mine. He was also worried about the ethical issues of designing CADS around my product. He and I had many in depth discussions about my feelings on the issue, and he did well at keeping me calm. Mark Reyland was also a friend of his, and we tried to keep the two separate, and he never shared the CADS with me. He just assured me that my product was better, so no worries. He also had a job to do for the UIA, and I always tried to respect that. Then at a much later date Joe shared with me that Mark Reyland had submitted the new colander design to A.J. Khubani on his private jet. I have verified that story through a very reliable source, and that source was someone who was also on the plane.

With everything I am trying to say, my main focus is that people understand that I respect Warren Tuttle's responsibility to Lifetime Brands, and I have never held against him that he did his job. Warren Tuttle is a great friend of mine, and still today I trust him. I think the distrust needs to be shifted in another direction, and that is the direction of Mark Reyland. I told Mark if this ever got out, it would be a train wreck, well Mark by not covering yourself, and boasting about what you had done, the train wreck is in fact here. I sit back, and kept my mouth closed, and you decided to move forward and make people aware you were redisigning my colander, and that is your fault.

I also would like to add that legally Mark Reyland did NOTHING wrong....... For the inventor community it seems to be the ETHICS are what is in question here with Mark Reyland position as Executive Director of the United Inventors Association!!

He spoke of me as if I was not only a friend, but a professional inventor: http://www.marktreyland.com/making-a-professional-inventor/ and maybe this is why I have had a hard time with this.

I do not want this blog post to be about anger or hurt, so I will leave it at this. I have drawn my own conclusion............Now it's up to you the reader to draw yours as to who is guilty of anything. It is NOT Warren Tuttle, it is NOT Lifetime Brands, and NOT the UIA. The only part the UIA that plays in any of this is the position Mark Reyland holds as the Executive Director.

I put my faith in Warren that he will handle this internally, and my hopes is that one bad apple does not spoil the whole bunch. We all agree the UIA has some outstanding inventor programs, and I know these people tirelessly give their personal time. I beg of each one of you reading, please put the blame where it is due, and not against an entire organization.

Any responses will be monitored before I post them because I will NOT have this turn into a more confusing situation, nor will I let this get out of hand with anything that is not a fact in this story!!
_____________________________________________________________________________

I have done what I thought was right, I may have handled this more of on an emotional level, instead of a professional level. for that I do apologize! but the facts are still the facts no matter how they are presented, I know I should have done it differently but I allowed my emotions to take hold. looking at the proof, I NEVER LIED to you, I told you the truth,
In Recent events, Mark, the UIA Greg Amundson of www.cornerflex (who I have never met, I do not know, and has stated he does not know me) and even Warren tuttle have slandered me, made every effort to discredit me, I have gotten emails where others who claim to know mark tell me to be careful, keep a close eye not only on myself, but be watchful for my family as well. ( to a degree I am fearful of the safety of myself and my family) my local police and friends on the police force have been made aware of these things and while there is nothing they can do right now, it is on file I have expressed my ceoncern for the safety and well being of my family.
Everything I have stated about the UIA has been proven, admitted or otherwise given full credibility
I will say this though, in a very short period of time, my life has been flipped upside down and violently shaken, well thats what it feels like.
There is still more to come, but anyone who supports my decision tp blow the whistle on the UIA. I need help. Me a handful of good friends, even if all you can do is make sure these messages get out there for as many people as possible to see. to telling your story, you are not alone, and you may just encourage the next person to tell their story