IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO CREATIVE GIFTS, INC., FASCINATIONS TOYS & GIFTS, INC., and WILLIAM HONES Plaintiffs, CIV.97 1266 LH/WWD v. UFO, MICHAEL SHERLOCK, KAREN SHERLOCK Defendants. AFFIDAVIT OF DR. EDWARD W. HONES STATE OF NEW MEXICO COUNTY OF LOS ALAMOS I, Edward W. Hones, being duly sworn, hereby depose and say as follows: 1. I am the president of Creative Gifts, Inc. ("Creative Gifts"), a Plaintiff in the above-captioned civil action and the father of William G. Hones (Bill Hones), another Plaintiff in this action. 2. The facts stated herein are of my own personal knowledge. I am competent and willing to testify to their truth. 3. I am a retired physicist, having worked most recently (1965-1994) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory doing research in space plasma physics. I received masters (M.A.) and doctorate (Ph.D.) degrees from Duke University in 1949 and 1952, respectively. I worked in nuclear reactor physics research from 1952 to 1959, then in various aspects of space research from 1959 to 1965 when I joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory. 4. In early September 1993, my son Bill Hones sent me a memo with a copy of U.S. Patent No. 4,382,245 for a "Levitation Device" issued to Roy Harrigan. In that memo he advised me that he was going to Vermont to visit the patent holder, Harrigan, and solicited my assistance in studying the magnetic field of the Harrigan device in order to optimize the potential of the device for possible commercialization as a toy or novelty item. 5. I studied the Harrigan patent but it did not disclose the physics of how the device worked. However, I did note that Harrigan taught that the base magnet should have a spherical surface and be magnetized so that the magnetization vectors define a cone. He taught that this configuration of magnetization provides a centering force on the spinning top levitated above the base magnet. 6. After Bill Hones returned from his visit with Roy Harrigan in Vermont, he commenced experimental research to develop a commercial product based on the Harrigan device. He requested me to attempt a computer simulation of Harrigan?s device. I have no record of and do not recall the exact date I began working on developing a computer program to calculate the magnetic field above a dish-shaped or spherical magnet, but it was between several days and several weeks after Bill Hones visited Roy Harrigan. 7. In late September or early October 1993 I developed a computer program I called MAGBILLIN which was used to make certain calculations regarding the magnetic field of a spherical magnetic shell. In about mid-October 1993 I developed a further computer program I called MAG2D that was used to make more sophisticated calculations concerning the magnetic field above a spherical magnetic shell. 8. In addition to developing computer programs and performing calculations with them, I also began studying the literature and various texts pertaining to permanent magnets and, particularly, magnetic shells, to learn about the magnetic fields of such shells, especially the magnetic fields of dish-shaped or spherical shells. 9. In about late October 1993 I came across a passage in a text in theoretical physics that stated that uniformly and normally magnetized shells having identical peripheries and identical magnetization strengths produce identical magnetic fields regardless of their surface profiles. After reading that passage, I called my son, Bill Hones, and told him what the text said. He did not believe it. But I then developed programs MAG1D and MAG3D that calculated the field above either a spherical shell or a flat shell and found, in agreement with the theoretical physics text, that the fields above the two forms were the same. 10. I suggested to Bill Hones that he should test the surprising predictions of the physics text and of my calculations. He did so and succeeded in levitating the top above a flat plastic magnet. 11. Had it not been for the aforementioned passage I read in the text on theoretical physics, I believe I would have continued to work on developing an understanding of the magnetic field above a spherical magnetic shell and would not have suggested to Bill Hones to try a flat, normally magnetized magnet. 12. By the end of November 1993, Bill Hones and I were convinced that Harrigan?s concept of a focusing effect with a dish-shaped base or a field with magnetization vectors that define a cone was erroneous. 13. I performed some further calculations for flat and dish-shaped magnets in December 1993 and in about mid-December we completely abandoned any work on pursuing a dish-shaped magnet for a commercial product. 14. We conducted some additional experiments in which we successfully levitated a magnetic top above a flat 4-inch square ceramic magnet and by January 1994 we had proved to ourselves that stable levitation of a spinning magnetic top could be accomplished with a normally magnetized flat base magnet with a square periphery, the only peripheral shape with which we had experimented. 15. In January-February 1994 I drafted an invention disclosure explaining our discovery and forwarded that disclosure to our patent attorneys in early February 1994 for preparation of a patent application. 16. The patent application for our invention was filed on February 17, 1994 and issued on April 4, 1995 as U.S. Patent No. 5,404,062. 17. The claims of our patent distinguish our invention over the Harrigan patent by reciting that the base (first) magnet has a substantially planar first surface and is magnetized normal (perpendicular) to the first surface and parallel to the axis of the first magnet. 18. I have never met Roy Harrigan. I spoke to him by phone on two occasions when he called me at my home to express his view that Bill Hones had "stolen" his patent. I cannot recall with any certainty the dates on which those two calls occurred. The first call was many weeks or perhaps months after our patent application was filed. The second call occurred perhaps a year or more after the the first call. Roy Harrigan did not participate with Bill Hones and me in the conception or reduction to practice of the invention disclosed and claimed in our U.S. Patent No. 5,404,062. I am not aware of any contribution whatsoever that Roy Harrigan made to the invention. Therefore, I do not believe he is an inventor of that invention. 19. In my opinion, it would not have been commercially feasible to produce a toy or novelty item using the teachings of the Harrigan patent. I believe that the invention conceived and reduced to practice by Bill Hones and me and described in our U.S. Patent No. 5,404,062 is the discovery that made it possible to commercialize the Levitron® anti-gravity levitating top. Further, affiant sayeth not Date: February 24, 1998 [signature] Edward W. Hones Sworn and subscribed to before me this 24 day of February 1998, State of New Mexico [signature] Pauli V. Lewman County of Los Alamos Notary Public Commission Expires 07/28/01