Correlated Magnetics Research & the Fullerton story

The whole category traces to one inventor — Larry W. Fullerton (1950–2016), the ultra-wideband radio pioneer — and one company holding the patents: Correlated Magnetics Research, Inc. (CMR) of Huntsville, Alabama. “Polymagnet®” is the product brand; CMR is the company.

From radar codes to refrigerator doors

Fullerton conceived ultra-wideband radio in 1973 and co-founded Time Domain Corp in 1987; he held 500+ patents across his career. The magnet idea began, by his own telling, with wanting a self-assembling toy for his grandchildren — parts that would find their own way together. His radar instincts supplied the mechanism: encode the magnet faces like a UWB pulse train and let correlation do the assembling. Cedar Ridge Research (2006) became Correlated Magnetics Research (2008), and the invention was announced publicly in Huntsville, October 2009. Popular Mechanics gave it a Breakthrough Award in 2010; Fast Company ranked Fullerton #81 among the most creative people in business the same year. He died of brain cancer in 2016. Co-inventor Mark Roberts serves as Chief IP Officer.

Timeline

Year	Event
1973	Fullerton conceives ultra-wideband radio — the coding theory that will later drive the magnets.
2006	Cedar Ridge Research founded; the self-assembling-toy problem meets correlation coding.
2008	Correlated Magnetics Research incorporated; cornerstone patent filed.
2009	Public announcement, Huntsville (October). A demo magnet ignores steel until inches away.
2010	US 7,800,471 “Field emission system” granted. Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award.
2013	MagPrinter ships — the first magnetizing printer, with a software pattern catalog.
2014	Desktop Mini MagPrinter (~$45k). Patent count reaches 121 issued + 58 pending (December).
2015	SmarterEveryDay #153 introduces “magic magnets” to millions.
2016	Larry Fullerton dies, age 66.
2021–22	NASA Armstrong flies a Polymagnet twist-release on the Prandtl-M glider release — five successful releases (tests Dec 2021, Sept 2022). The category’s one fully verified customer deployment.
2026	Current leadership team in place; catalog, software and magnetizer lines active on polymagnet.com.

The company today

HQ: 4801 University Square, Suite 2, Huntsville, AL 35816 · (256) 489-4444 · connect@polymagnet.com. Tagline: “Accelerating the Commercialization of Advanced Magnetics.”
Leadership (per polymagnet.com, 2026): CEO & Board Chairman Tim Costello; Chief Experience Officer & Board Member Melissa Morman; Greg Miller (CFO); Steve Murray (Engineering); Jake Zimmerman (Legal); Mark Roberts (Chief IP Officer, co-inventor).
Funding: roughly $11.2–11.9M total — Javelin Venture Partners, Capital Factory (Austin), plus SBIR awards. Independent and private; never reported acquired.
Verified partnership: Industrial Magnetics Inc. (IMI) — supply and applications partner behind the licensed Max-Attach® line. Retail distribution also via Amazing Magnets and PolarStar.

On the logo wall. polymagnet.com displays NASA, Tesla, Home Depot, US Navy and Missile Defense logos. Primary sources verify NASA only (the Prandtl-M releases, plus an ONR SBIR and a NASA SmCo coupler mentioned in a single secondary source). This guide does not state the others as customers, and neither should you.

The patent spine

CMR is fundamentally an IP company — “100+ US patents” per its FAQ; 121 issued + 58 pending as of December 2014. The load-bearing ones:

Patent	Covers
US 7,800,471	“Field emission system and method” — the cornerstone (filed 2008, granted 2010): correlated field emission structures, the ~10× off-peak collapse.
US 7,755,462	Ring-coded structures.
US 7,839,247	Designed force profiles.
US 7,889,038	Coding methodology.
US 8,844,121	Manufacturing methods.
US 8,872,608	One-dimensional codes.
US 9,219,403	Shear-force transfer (couplings, magnetic gears).
US 10,204,727 (+ 10,734,016 / 11,270,723)	The MagPrinter writing technology.
US 11,779,865 / 12,145,088 / 12,168,187	Coded filter interconnects — parts that seat only when correct.
WO 2010/141324	International family.

The earliest 2008-priority patents expire around 2028–2030 — a date worth watching: it could open the field to second sources and change the category’s economics entirely.

What can you actually buy today? The catalog →