For instance, tobacco makers have experimented with several techniques to reduce the smoke from an idle, burning cigarette. Among the measures evaluated are increasing a cigarette's paper weight to make it burn more slowly, coating the wrapping papers with fire retardants, and creating cigarettes that extinguish themselves when they're not being smoked.

One promising invention, created by inventors at the Canadian company Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, has been submitted for a U.S. patent. It's a cigarette tube that holds the cigarette while it is being smoked. The design of the tube minimizes the release of secondhand smoke particles into the air.

Another invention, which received a U.S. patent last summer, comes from Japan Tobacco. The company created a cigarette that produces less smoke because it is wrapped twice. The first covering of the cigarette is a sheet of tobacco created from a paper-making method, followed by a cellulose-based paper.

Philip Morris won a patent in April for a cigarette with an outer wrapper that is "impervious to oxygen, causing the tobacco to extinguish between puffs."

Another scientist at Philip Morris received a patent this year for a "puff-on-demand" cigarette that is aimed at reducing secondhand smoke. The invention is a small box with an opening for the cigarette. A trigger on the box advances the cigarette into a "cigarette extinguishing sleeve."

According to inventor Xuan Pham, "Actuation of the trigger also activates a heat source to temporarily provide heat to the exposed portion of the cigarette, thereby lighting the cigarette and allowing the smoker to take a puff from the end of the cigarette protruding from the lighter box housing."

The extinguishing sleeve puts out the cigarette. The smoker pulls the trigger again for another puff.

For non-smokers, Kris Colburn, an independent inventor in Renton, Wash., has developed a "personal smoke repeller." The small fan can be strapped around the neck, wrist, or waist to blow secondhand smoke away.

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