By Cindy Skrzycki
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; D01
In 1999, Stephen Gass , a patent lawyer and woodworking hobbyist, invented a device to make power saws safer. It was designed to prevent, or at least minimize, the gruesome injuries that result when someone's flesh hits the blade of a table saw spinning at 4,000 revolutions per minute.
Home hobbyists and commercial workers have an estimated 55,000 injuries a year -- including thousands of amputations. Education and an existing saw safety guard didn't work well enough.
Gass called his invention SawStop and was so convinced of its value that he quit his job at a law firm, raised capital, and with two partners, started his own company in Wilsonville, Ore. He demonstrated the technology -- which can stop a saw blade in three-thousandths of a second -- to anyone who would watch.
Seven years later, Gass says he was unprepared for the buzz saw of opposition he got from such companies as Black & Decker Corp., Robert Bosch Tool Corp. and Ryobi Technologies Inc . "Our thought was the manufacturers would license it," he said. "We thought it was inevitable."
Instead, not a single manufacturer has signed a contract with him. An Underwriters Laboratories Inc. subcommittee, with some of the saw manufacturers on the panel, voted in early 2003 not to approve his invention.
John Drengenberg , manager of consumer affairs for UL, which is based in Northbrook, Ill., said the independent testing organization thought there were too many unanswered questions. "The blade stops in microseconds, but do we create some other hazard?" he said. "Does the blade fall apart, how easy is it to install a new one, will it work on metal? We don't mandate something because it is nice."
Gass then changed direction, turning to the Washington regulatory establishment, in the form of the Consumer Product Safety Commission , to try to win acceptance for SawStop. He petitioned the agency in April 2003, asking it to require the industry to devise a detection system that would stop a saw blade so that a user would be cut no deeper than one-eighth of an inch.
The CPSC reviewed the petition, yet took no immediate action. So Gass concentrated on filing some 50 patents related to the technology.
The industry, anticipating that the CPSC might become interested in issuing a standard, formed a joint venture later in 2003 to come up with its own improvements. This spring, the Power Tool Institute , its trade group, told the regulators it would probably have better guarding mechanisms ready by 2007, with the blessing of UL.
The institute, based in Cleveland, also said its efforts to examine sensing technology were being hindered by the "web of patent applications Mr. Gass has filed."
The industry made it clear that its members weren't prepared to pay up to an 8 percent royalty on the wholesale price of each saw, Gass's asking price.
They estimated it would cost at least $70 million to implement the technology proposed in Gass's petition and that consumers might not be willing to pay for it. They suggested the Oregon inventor was using a safety issue to profiteer.
"He wants to force his device on the industry at an unreasonable price," said Art Herold , a Washington attorney for the institute. Herold said it would be improper for the agency to mandate a standard because "it would become a promoter and silent partner" in Gass's technology.
Gass was undeterred. He began making SawStop saws himself, selling them for about $4,000 each. (Typical saws range from $100 to about $3,000.) Gass said he got kudos from high school officials who bought saws and were grateful they could send kids home "with their thumbs."
SawStop received some negative reviews in the trade press, yet Gass has also won honors such as the Popular Mechanics 2006 Breakthrough Award for safety earlier this month.
He also unexpectedly found an influential lobbyist. Last year, James Fuller , who had been chief of staff to CPSC Chairman Harold Stratton , heard about Gass's invention from a colleague at Public Strategies , an Austin-based public relations firm he had joined.
Fuller offered his services, free of charge. He was impressed by the technology for a simple reason: It might have stopped his brother from losing four fingers in a power-saw accident.
Fuller is a Republican, not inclined to push regulation. But he recalled thinking his old agency should take a closer look. "You sometimes have to step in to foster these innovations because the industry doesn't have the incentive to do it," he said.
Fuller got an audience for Gass with his former boss on May 30. The inventor showed Stratton and other CPSC officials how the safety device worked by using a hot dog as a stand-in for a finger. When the hot dog hit the saw he had brought into the agency offices, it received not much more than a nick.
A month later, the CPSC staff recommended the petition be granted. On July 11, the commission voted, 2 to 1, to start the process of making a new rule, a job that can take years.
Fuller and Gass said they felt vindicated, although the rejoicing ended four days later when Stratton resigned from the agency. One of the remaining commissioners, Nancy A. Nord , wanted to defer action on the petition and instead look at voluntary efforts being made by the industry.
Nord is now acting chairman of the commission. Fuller arranged an audience with her on Sept. 6, but Gass said it was a hard sell.
Herold of the Power Tool Institute said the result the CPSC is seeking may already have been accomplished because the industry has a new awareness of the need to improve the product.
Julie Vallese , CPSC spokeswoman, said the saw-safety standard idea isn't dead but that the agency's "decision-making procedures" don't allow the rulemaking to advance with what amounts to a deadlocked commission.
Gass is keeping busy. He is developing less expensive models of his saws and is involved on the legal front. He has testified as an expert in one lawsuit against a manufacturer over injuries and is consulting with plaintiffs' lawyers in other cases.
Cindy Skrzycki is a regulatory columnist for Bloomberg News.
