Jeffery,

I am at a total loss to understand why you spent so much time to

photograph and analyze the Pennco feeder you purchased from us.

I spent almost 10 years and countless hours to develop the mechanism you now

see in the Pennco Feeder. In 1988 Pennco was awarded a US Patent on this

system of "release & latch". Because this is a small business and has very

little profit, we decided not to pay the patent maintenance fee after a few

years. I make all these feeders in my home shop and only sell direct. My

goal all along has been to make a simple but reliable feeder at the lowest

cost possible.

I appreciate your recommendation to purchase one or more feeders from

Pennco, but you did not give the web-site name. I see no justifiable reason

for you to have gone to so much trouble and time to teach people how to

build this feeder and thus deprive me of those sales. I assume all the time

was your own and not the University's time.

I can assure you that the average "Joe" will spend far more than $30 when

he makes one for himself based on your photos and Auto-Cad drawings. You

should warn your site visitors that it probably will cost more than Pennco

can sell them a feeder for.

Due to the fact that you may be costing Pennco sales, I think you should

add the above comments to your site. You should also check the patent

literature in the future before embarking on projects like this.

Again, thanks for the recommendation, but I continue to wonder why you went

to so much trouble to try to hurt my business. I would appreciate hearing

from you.

Donald W. Pennington

Pennco,Inc.

532 Woodstone Dr.

Baton Rouge, LA 70808

225-769-5682 225-757-9536 (Fax)

PS I retired after 35 years in research at a major Chemical Co.

and then became Director of the Office of Technology Transfer

(patents and copyrights) at Louisiana State University. It took me a long

time to develop this feeder design in my spare time, and it has found wide

acceptance among my customers as a very reliable and inexpensive feeder.

feeder.