Inventor's interface.

• Position: Alaska Inventors Association plans to create an interactive business-assistance computer network

Inventors' Interface. The Alaska Inventors Association has received two grants to help it launch an interactive business-assistance computer network. The bulletin-board network is designed to provide personalized assistance that will supplement the information available from the Buslink computer network maintained by the University of Alaska Small Business Development Center. Named "Linking Alaska Minds," or LAM, the new network is designed to help inventors traverse the long road between birth of an innovative idea and sales of a resultant product or service.

According to Doug Askerman, executive director of the Alaska Inventors Association, a $25,000 grant was awarded to the association last year by the U.S. Department of Energy for use in examining the feasibility of a computer network to connect various research and business-practice experts with individuals...