Multinationals & Inventions

As an Australian inventor I have been fortunate to (finally) receive firm evidence of collusion by multinationals to keep inventions of individuals from commercialisation. The evidence indicates a pattern of activity which would be likely to support legal action under the racketeer influenced and corrupt organisations legislation.
I am interested to hear from other inventors and researchers who might have similar evidence which we might collate and analyse with a view to further action.

Stuart Saunders,
WWW.IPROAG.ORG
email : stuart21@mac.com

 

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I have been involved with a Western Australian company for many years, with a host of patents that have been developed into several products. We have never had any problems with multinationals. In fact we have had good ongoing support from various multinational companies. Without support from these companies several inventions would never have seen the light of day.

For example. A recent product needed manufacturing, and without a big budget we found that to produce in Australia was impossible due to the high cost of manufacturing. We then set about to approach overseas multinationals for help. Within a month we had a container full of product with no up front cost at all. Of course we did pay them for production costs after the product hit the stores, and they benefit from ongoing production. Yet if the product did not sell they would have lost several hundred thousand.

We have found that most of the companies that we approached have been open and giving, with free advice as to how to improve our products.

Personally many inventors are there own worst enemy, with greed and pride coming in the way of developing the product. A small percentage of a large multinational production is in my view much better then a large percentage of a small local production.

This is just my experiences and does not represent the experiences of others.

Welcome to sciforums Screws21. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

 

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Thanks for your reply, Blindman.
I am happy to hear of your success.

I have also been in the game a long time. I have found that the reaction to inventors / inventions varies according to the industry. In the auto industry, inventions are (generally) received fairly. However, in the consumer electronics industry and the IT industry, this has not been my experience. I got an inventor of the year award for an invention that sony said was 'excellent - brilliant'. But I never got any reply from them, or any of the hundred odd other 'name brand' cos I contacted. 'No name brand' cos (OEMs) did appear to deal on the level.

I appreciate your sentiment that inventors are often their own worst enemies, and partially agree with it. What is the solution? Make a law that only MBAs or DBAs are allowed to invent things?
Or do we make a patent system that accounts for the realities of the invention situation?

You never get near a negotiation table, so you don't get a chance to prove whether you are your own worst enemy or not!

In the case I refer to in my posting, there is an area of technology which appears to approaching its limits, and this is limiting the growth of a related area of technology. I have an invention which increases the performance of the first technology by a factor of three, which would greatly facilitate the second area.
I have proven the invention; though design of a related noncritical area is beyond my area of expertise.
I have approached many in the industry (with NDA of course). All have agreed with the design, or should I say none has found reason to criticise it, or to dispute my (demonstrated) ~ 300% performance increase. However again I have had zero response from industry. Inevitably after they learn of your technology, you will not hear from them again; and you cannot contact them in any meaningful way.

In this case there is one company which needs this technology more than any other. They are disadvantaged compared to their competitors, and their corporate strategies must be designed around the limitations of the first technology.
However I find when I try to contact them, in good faith, mutual advantage, etc, etc, etc, that I receive no reply from them, but my correspondence is being forwarded to my competitor! Or should I say to the company which would be my competitor were I to get my invention into production.
This represents collusion, restraint of trade, interference in commerce, etc, all of which are proscribed activities under the RICO act.

Regards,
Screws21

 

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Sounds like a valuable invention.

The auto industry is chock full of evidence of sequestered, squelched and suppressed inventions, the Pogue carburetor and a couple of other carburetion systems, surfacing firing spark plugs which are no longer on the market, hybrid cars were first made in something like 1928 and yet we only see them now gaining popularity. The oil was cheaper, basically a readily available brute force method rather than finesse. Now fossil fuel burning revenue production is the bread and butter of some of the largest internationals. I dare say they basically hold the United States hostage right now to wars of resource conquest, fabricated terrorists, and homage to their dictates right up to the white house.

Dare I say that maybe most industries seem to have evidence of invention manipulation to serve vested interests? Solar photovoltaics seem to exhibit such a pattern, as is evident with analysis of Olvshinski's work. I've run accross, and maybe you have too, the occasional obscure press release of a new technology that you never hear of again.

Check out the patents you can find for William Hotine of California. I met him and we established a working relationship, converting half of his lab into an efficiency apartment for me and my son. I shared what I was working on with him and he shared what he was working on. I had earnestly studied wind mill designs before I met him and showed him a scheme I had devised when he stopped me short and said he had the vane I'd want to use. He showed me what appears to me to be a basic design for a windmill that could make the technology quite a bit more simple and efficient. That was in 1976 so the patent has probably expired which must of been placed before then as I don't see it amongst the free search results. He was awarded mention as the most prolific inventor in something like 1980 by some organization. It alarms me that it hasn't made it to common use. I am about to build one and have collected most of the parts. If you saw it I think you would be immediately intrigued. The basic idea is very elegant. Just my stating that such a thing exists might be enough for you to figure it out yourself. The patent must of expired on it so, a rod with two vanes on either end that are perpendicular to each other and each only extending on one side of the vane. That vane and a few others are capable of rotating in the vertical axis of the windmill 90 degrees. It remains ready to accept wind from any direction while providing almost complete feathering. I just discovered an old ACAD drawing I made of the thing that I'll try to render to a gif or jpg.

You are up against big guns, I bet, sounds like you are challenging bandwidth costs. See the history of the RIAA on how they've tried to squelch sharing? I bet some of that same furor can be exhibited by media hosts which in the United States is mainly fossil fuel and nuclear power invested companies. They own most of the television and radio stations and apparently are rising as media moguls in other areas of the globe.

For what its worth, you might look into another way to get it out. Perhaps looking to how open source software engineers get compensated can assist. Otherwise its benefits may remain sequestered.

 

Blindman,
I smell nasturtiums cast. "I hope you find what you are looking for"

Look at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/business/17intel.html?pagewanted=1&th

Why is it preferable to throw away R & D, cancel deliveries and sack workers, instead of dealing with inventors who want to help solve your problems?

 

'Samatter Blindman?
You deaf too?
I'm all ears for your reply.

 

Any company that stops its R&D will have problems in the future. But the "Intel's Big Shift After Hitting Technical Wall" article, does not suggest that they are abandoning their R&D but taking a side step. Re-evaluating research is as important as good marketing.

As for canceling deliveries and sacking workers? The article could be read to imply this, but again this is standard practice for big business. They are about making money for the share holders.

Intel's research budget is very large with a diverse range of projects. They employ hundreds of researchers (inventors) and have, so far, been successfully in the business of chip manufacturing. New ideas are always welcome but getting your concepts to be seen by the right eyes can be difficult. It pays to have someone represent you, a good sales man, someone that can sell your ideas with an aggressive approach not allowing closing doors to stop the pitch. You will have to invest time and money to sell you idea, you will have to shake the hands of many middle management lackeys before you get to the right person. Its up to YOU to sell your invention.