Several years ago I had a brilliant idea and took it to the government ‘Small Business Development’ offices in Launceston, looking for some funding to develop it.
I started off by saying, “I have an idea that is potentially worth Billions of Dollars every year.”
Before I could go further he replied, “Let me stop you right there. I hate to disillusion you, but no matter what your idea is, without even hearing it, I can tell you that it is worth precisely NOTHING!”
I was aghast. He went on to explain.
“Intellectual property has no market. No one will buy it or pay you a cent for it. They might steal it from you as you are unable to protect your idea and develop it themselves. Intellectual property is not protected under copyright or patents. You have to have something physical to offer before it can be protected, and that can be an expensive business that you might have to pay for yourself. The Government cannot help you in this and I have no authority to act. My best advice to you is that once you have developed something, even a computer program which has unique features; you can see a Patent Attorney and get him to act for you. It will cost you in the region of $1000 for his services, which includes a search and the legalese that protects the idea. Registration is approximately $2000 for a provisional patent in Australia; Worldwide, anything up $100 000, with further fees after a statutory period of one year for full registration if there are no objections.”
The idea was a good one and still is. I spent in the region of $4000 from my own pocket employing a programmer to lay out my basic ideas. I stopped when he discovered an American patent covering a couple of the concepts, couched in terms that it were almost impossible to recognise or decipher without an advanced dictionary. It was deliberately hidden like a tiger in the grass, waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting violators. The concept has never been incorporated into anything or used, and is fairly easily avoided. It has been placed there purely for litigation purposes and compensation claims. I believe that it has now expired, but I have not checked as I cannot locate it again due to the language used.
The idea was based on a Universal Translation Program that would return accurate results from any of over 1700 current languages in the world, including ancient and dead languages and also hieroglyphics and any other script. The program was unique in that it contained some lateral thinking that only required a smallish single-user program in each of the languages to communicate both ways with ALL of the others languages in the world. Currently translation programs are one-on-one requiring over a million combinations to cover this amount of languages.
The United Nations, NATO, the EU, WHO and other official world bodies spend literally billions of dollars a year on translators and translation programs. This system would require one person per language to input the speeches and documents into a centralised program and have them instantly available to every other member concerned on a monitor screen. It would make the ENTIRE Internet available to everybody. Certainly an idea worth considering with all the other ramifications for business etc!
And this is an idea that could be developed here, especially as the NBN is being rolled out in Tasmania. But, sponsorship? Not currently in the cross-hairs of government.
However, I think I should have been able to foretell this answer due to other experiences of myself and my brother. Dr Jeremy Charles Drake invented the electro-osmosis process in conjunction with the British government. This is the basis for water purification and desalination throughout the world. He used the government laboratories at Harwell to develop and test the idea, and it was eventually patented in their joint names. When he asked for remuneration, he was told, ‘No, there is nothing in it for you. You used our labs at our expense to develop this, so we are claiming the profits. You get the glory!’ A pilot station was built on the Trent River in Nottinghamshire at great expense to purify contaminated water.
However, he got a condign revenge a couple of years later when he invented a superior model under his own name and sold it to a large Japanese company, who are now the greatest desalination company in the world. He accepted a directorship and was their official European representative until his death at the age of 55. They refused to let him resign despite his complaints of having virtually nothing to do, except fly to Japan a couple of times a year to attend board meetings and the occasional lecture tour.
For my own part, I worked for a plastics company called British Celanese in Derbyshire for about a year; a subsidiary of Courtaulds. At the time, under the Harold Wilson government we were constantly regaled with the idea that there was a ‘world shortage’ of virtually everything, including corrugated cardboard packing material. At the same time there were three sinkings of yachts in the British Channel due to collisions and having their floatation chambers punctured.
I submitted a suggestion via the company scheme to counter both these factors. I invented a substitute packing material made from plastic and also designed the machine to make it. I was told that my patent rights belonged to my employer, but they could ‘see no commercial use for this product and that the prototype machine would be too costly to develop.’ Nevertheless, I was paid the magnificent sum of Five Pounds for ‘my effort, and please keep the ideas rolling in’.
Just over one and a half years later, ‘Bubblewrap’ was sprung on the market by an American company – exactly the substance I had invented!
I had suggested in my submission that if floatation chambers in yachts were filled with this stuff, the three recent sinkings would not have happened. About ten years later, a sunken wartime ship that had been taking £18 million in gold to the Russian port of Archangel was torpedoed and sunk in deep water. A successful salvage operation was launched to raise the ship by pumping strips of ‘bubble polythene’ (my term) down a tube into the vessel. However, I did not get my share of the gold!
All great invention starts with an idea and develop from there. The commercial start is always small and often requires some form of sponsorship, but this is sadly lacking from any official quarters. Ideas are often suppressed or rejected if they cross with business plans or profits. I have suffered from this as well. What is required is an independent evaluation body which can act with security to prevent the leaking of sensitive ideas and to recommend development financing where appropriate. The existing ‘Small Business Development Board’ is not equipped for this and there is nowhere to go.
There must be MANY ideas out there, which will never see the light of day. These are all opportunities lost and this could be remedied by a little foresight on the part of government and a willingness to invest in the future of Tasmania. It could take the State in a new direction and make it a Mecca for innovation, with all the subsequent benefits.
Who does one approach, as the government seems to have a mindset of only one solution, and that is to encourage loss-making mega-business at public expense instead of looking for viable alternative directions?
The field is wide open.
