HUNTLEY – Prior to becoming a lawyer and establishing a law firm in Huntley, Michael Fleck was a chemist.
He did his research as part of the research faculty at the University of Illinois, and even earned a patent for an electric carbon monoxide filter.
Now, the attorney can credit a second patent to his name, as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently awarded him and his co-inventor, his brother-in-law, a utility patent for a personal water treatment device.
Over a conversation with his retired Navy SEAL brother-in-law, Huntley lawyer and resident Michael Fleck developed an idea for a portable water purification device. Patent earned. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
“About four years ago, my brother-in-law [who, Fleck noted, is a retired Navy Seal] and I were talking about how difficult it was to have fresh drinking water or the technology to achieve that out on missions,” Fleck said. “The current technologies require you to use pills, or even water treatment devices that can easily break.”
It was that same day where they developed the idea for a prototype that provides broad spectrum water purification; a portable device that can be used for a handful of people.
The device, Fleck notes, is designed for use in disaster relief or rescue operations and has use for military applications and in impoverished areas.
Now that the patent has been issued, Fleck and his brother-in-law are trying to find how to make it marketable.
“We have to figure out how to make it available to the various organizations that would want to use this for disaster relief, impoverished nations, or even the military,” he said.
“Being an attorney, I don’t exactly have a lot of free time. My brother-in-law does private contracting in the D.C. area, so we have some limitations. But we’d love to have the opportunity to have something going, maybe even in the Huntley area.”
Fleck said he is hopeful something can happen this year, adding that there seems to be “an awful amount of interest in the device.”
“The key is to try and get the right funding for it,” he said. “We need to find the people who are willing to invest in the idea. It appears to be a good idea, and we have some assurance that we’re on the right track.”
Fleck is considering a Kickstarter campaign for the device as one avenue of fundraising. “We’ve had conversations with interested parties…really good conversations…where people seem to be really interested in this.”
To come full circle, Fleck actually used the money earned from his first patent to begin his law office and has been setting aside money from the law firm to help fund the second patent.
