John Walton is a law professor at Northern Illinois University. In his spare time, he is a car enthusiast. However, these days he doesn't have much spare time. While working on his car, John thought of a solution to a problem encountered by many automobile enthusiasts. He also saw an opportunity to enhance his understanding of patent law and the growing trend of entrepreneur and start up focused clinics at law schools.

Initially, Walton thought he'd conduct an academic exercise centered around creating a product, protecting its intellectual property, and starting a business to market the product to a manufacturer. However, the professor quickly became aware of the costs of prototyping a manufactured product and protecting it with trademarks and patents. He also learned there are valuable resources available when you know where to look.

John reached out to the IL Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Waubonsee, and Luanne Mayorga at the IL International Trade Center (ITC) at College of DuPage for help getting his concept off the ground. He started with the SBDC where Harriet Parker helped him find information on local sources for tooling and manufacturing. Tool Rite Industries in Batavia and Ruddy Brothers, Inc. in North Aurora created the first working prototypes. From there, Walton worked with Hanson Pattern and Sandwich Casting in Sandwich, IL and ultimately produced the Jackpoint Jackstand.

Jackpoint Jackstands let you use a conventional floor jack to lift your car on the proper factory jacking location and then use that same location to support the car on a jack stand. This eliminates the problem of where to place the jack stand, as well as the risk of the car slipping off the stand. The product currently serves a niche market of car enthusiasts worldwide.

As the jack stand was progressing toward a final product, Walton realized he would need to protect the unique features of his invention with trademarks and patents. He found intellectual property law assistance that originated at his home institution - the Northern Illinois University College of Law. Two of NIU's alums, Mike and Greg Chinlund are attorneys at Marshall, Gerstein, & Borun LLP in Chicago. These alumni lawyers and their firm were essential to Walton obtaining two patents on the invention.

Walton initially had nine pairs of the jack stands made at the Sandwich foundry. The early jack stands sold in about a week and Walton requested a few more. Sales continued and Walton began receiving inquiries for international sales. Uncertain about the rules and regulations involving exports of manufactured tools, Walton visited Luanne Mayorga at the International Trade Center (ITC) at College of DuPage. She provided assistance on topics of export basics, commodity classification for export, and other compliance matters in addition to assistance Walton received through grant money from the Small Business Jobs Act (SBJA). Using the ITC's assistance, Walton increased exports and demand for more products. This led to Sandwich Casting transferring production to its larger, parent facility, Trio Foundry in Montgomery, IL. Jackpoint  

Jackstands is also currently building its third set of manufacturing tools at Hanson Pattern.

Jackpoint Jackstands are now in use by customers around the world, including the US, Canada, Australia, Scotland, Brazil, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Kuwait, Dubai, and Japan. The product was featured on Jay Leno's Garage, and is currently being used to prepare vehicles on the set of the new Captain America movie.

Jackpoint Jackstands continues as a small niche business as Professor Walton devotes his efforts to teaching. He's using what he learned bringing an idea from cardboard model to a patented product in the classroom to provide his students practice oriented learning and practical application of the law.

Professor Walton said, "Harriet and Luanne, the Illinois Small Business Development Center, and the International Trade Center introduced me to an extraordinary amount of information and assets that small businesses and start-ups can use to navigate the difficult path for entrepreneurs. Working with them made the information and training I have as a lawyer more useful and the information they provided more valuable".  

You can find Jackpoint Jackstands for sale at www.jackpointjackstands.com, or visit their Facebook page.