Bio

Charles Kannankeril was born in Kerala, India, where he received his bachelor's degree in chemistry. After coming to United States, he received a master's degree in organic chemistry from the University of Massachusetts. Charles was accepted to the doctorate program there, but decided to pursue the field of engineering to broaden his knowledge base. He received his second master's degree in engineering, from the same university, in the field of plastics.

Charles has over three years of teaching experience at universities both in India and the United States. He has worked in the plastics and rubber industries and has forty-five years of research and development experience in this area. Charles has held various positions in these fields, including Development Engineer, Senior Development Engineer, Senior Engineering Fellow and Director of Research &Development.

During his career he was granted a total of eighty-five US and International patents.  Currently, Charles has ten patent applications that are pending in the US patent office. Many of his inventions are also protected by trade secrets. Over the years, he invented and documented over 300 ideas for new products and processes.

In recognition of his contributions, Charles was inducted into Sealed Air Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004 and received the Engineer of the Year award from the Malayalee Engineer's Association in 2012.

By sharing his life and research experiences, Charles' goal is to inspire readers to be creative and to motivate them to set their goals high to make a meaningful contribution to society by creating a better way of life. 

What was the first patent about? 

My first patent was for a shipping bag for bio-hazardous human specimen.  This was created to avoid the bacteria contamination from the specimen during shipping and handling cycle and to protect the employees.  This product was created during the AIDS crisis to safely ship and handle the blood samples from the patients without the danger of exposure or contamination. This bag provided absorbent material to soak up the blood in case of accidental spillage and at the same time destroys the bacteria with the chemicals  provided inside the bag.  

Which patent has created products people use more? 

Most of my patents are for process which the consumers won’t see or use. Some of my product patents include:

This patent is for the new Bubble Wrap which is made flat and then gets inflated on demand. Most of the Bubble Wrap consumers use today are this type. This new technology helped our company save millions of dollars every year in shipping cost.  For example, one of our customers, Amazon, uses more than 100 trucks full of Bubble Wrap each day to package their products. By providing them flat Bubble Wrap which can be inflated instantly and on demand, saved them huge amounts of money for shipping and storage.  This new Bubble Wrap is also stronger and difficult to pop.

‘Produce Bag and Dispenser’ used in the super market is another product that I patented. These are the narrow bags in a roll used for fruits and vegetables that you see in a grocery store.  The consumer pulls these bags with one hand to separate from the roll and then it unfolds into a large bag.  Today more than 90% of all the grocery stores in the US uses this type of bags.

Insulation panel made from bubbles laminated to aluminum foils is another patented product used for many housing and construction industry.

Flame retardant and anti-static cushion packaging materials for the electronic industry, bubble cushion mailers for shipping delicate products are some of the other patented products familiar to the consumers.

One of my significant inventions, "High temperature resistant rubber tape formula that can withstand 3400°F" was not patented but instead kept as a trade secret. This product was tested for protecting NASA Space Shuttle during the re-entry to earth. This product is still manufactured successfully under Trade Secret agreement and is widely used by all the major electric power companies.  Nobody has been able to copy this formula, even 40 years after this invention. 

How many patents were converted in to products or services? 

About 70% of the patents were converted into products and processes. Many of the products and processes are used in the industry and the consumers won’t get to know them.  Remaining 30% of the patents are kept as picket fence to prevent the competition from competing with us. 

How did you start your career, by chance or deliberately? 

I started to work as a Development Engineer in a small company in Canada. I took a special interest in listening to the problems of customers.  Interacting with the customers helped me to understand their problem better. I realized that it is better  to provide the customer with what they really need rather what they want. This attitude eventually helped me to serve the customer better  by addressing the root of the problem.  With this goal in mind, I was able to create products that are new, better, useful and unique.

I believe, it is not how much one learn, but how one uses the  knowledge, is important. You  don’t have to be  highly educated to be an inventor. Many of the inventions were created by ordinary people without any special education or training and even by children at a very young age. Thomas Edison did not have any formal education. Many inventors dropped out of college before getting a degree. This does not mean that anybody with a higher education won’t become an inventor.  I worked with many MIT graduates from Boston. Contrary to my initial expectation, most of them did not contribute to the research team by coming up with their own inventions. They were too focused on the theoretical aspects of the problems and ignored the practical side. Only one person from that group made a significant contribution. Avoiding the tunnel vision and thinking outside the box is the key to any invention, and high education has little to do with this.  

Some details about your family here and in Kerala 

I was born in Kumbalanghy, Kerala.  Living with six brothers and four sisters and being the  tenth child was not easy.  At that time, we did not have electricity or running water in that island.  I grew up without much more than the essentials in Kerala. Instead of wishing for the kind of luxury and modern capabilities that others had, I created my own way by making the best use out of what I did have. When I saw or heard about the new technologies and advances outside, I often thought about how to experience and recreate what was missing. The best way I could do this was by imagining, imitating and improvising.  Early on, I started to set my goals high

and started doing things differently with the resources that were available to me. This attitude of experimentation and determination gave me the creativity, knowledge and confidence to become an inventor.