Ada firm innovates way to 40 original patents, 15 new jobs, and $1B in revenue

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

Imagine your cell phone or iPod charging wirelessly in your backpack, purse or briefcase as you hustle to your next appointment.

Imagine your laptop always being charged—wirelessly—requiring no docking station or adaptor.

Ada-based Fulton Innovation, an innovative wireless technology firm in the Alticor family of businesses, is imaging, and creating, those scenarios with its cutting-edge eCoupled technology. The technology enables all kinds of electronics—stereos, power tools, audio/visual equipment, kitchen appliances, medical devices—to wirelessly power anything that would normally require a cord.

"Herman Miller used eCoupled technology in a work surface that powers your laptop without a docking station," says David Baarman, Fulton Innovation spokesperson and one of the inventors of the technology. "All you do is set the laptop on the table and it recharges."

Visteon built eCoupled into an auto console that wirelessly recharges cell phones and iPODs when they’re placed in the console. Bluetooth technology wirelessly connects the phones and iPods to the auto’s audio system, interrupting the stereo or pausing the iPod to make and receive calls, and restarting the system when the call is finished.

"Everyone has a drawer at home loaded with adaptors," Baarman says. "We’re saying no more of that, one universal power for everything. Let’s adapt to what the devices need and get rid of the connector altogether."

In the six years since company leaders formed Fulton Innovation, the firm has applied for 200 patents and received 40, with more pending. As of 2007, sales revenue reached some $1 billion, generated by Alticor through sales of the eSpring Water Treatment System which launched the technology. The company has also created 15 high-end technical, marketing and R&D jobs.

Source: David Baarman, Fulton Innovation;

Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].