Manuel Martinez sent us a note about his new company, www.thesolarpole.com.

The Valley resident says his product provides a unique solution for a tough housing market. It is certainly unique.

But I'll let him explain: "I developed a patent-pending real estate pole that has a solar light mounted to it for an additional 6 to 8 hours of marketing. In today's market, Realtors, sellers, builders need to stand out."

In this era of local inventors -- stripper poles, solar hat fans, Fresno scraper and grape varieties -- getting patents, Martinez might join the short list.