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Ivor Catt, 121 Westfields, St. Albans AL3 4JR
vor Catt 20dec94 tl20xmas Put together in haste to 'catch' the Christmas cards. Sue's forthright dissertation on AIDS and Education was enthusiastically received by the examiners for her M.Ed., which she now has passed. It came in the nick of time, because the Conventional Wisdom constructed by the AIDS industry seems to be unravelling rapidly. See London's "Time Out", 23-30nov94. All but the appendices are available on computer disc, and it makes good reading. Ivor has the Kernel patents for USA, Britain and Germany. A year or so ago he limited his costs in Europe by limiting to UK and Germany. The Japanese patent was delayed in order to minimise initial costs. However, the crunch comes early in 1995, and Ivor will let the Japanese patent go. The Kernel patents, dated 1987, are now 7 years old. Patents run for 16 or 20 years. There is no activity over Kernel. Spiral, the previous Catt patent, was dated 1972 and came to market 17 years later, in the USA. £16 millions were invested in Spiral, primarily by Fujitsu Japan, Tandem USA, SGS Italy, and elsewhere. It is noteworthy that when Spiral was obsolete, investment continued to flow into it and not into Kernel, a more up to date invention by the same inventor, which received no investment. It is interesting to evaluate the relative blame to be attached to inventors and the rest of society. Today, although Electronics Engineering University courses are the most under-subscribed, the highest unemployment rate among young graduates is among graduate Electronic Engineers. Sam Falle points out that the vast majority of engineering and, more generally, science students in the UK are in any case foreign, and the foreign proportion is rising. He equates this with the increasing employment, first of slaves and then of foreign mercenaries in the Roman Legions, shortly before the Roman empire collapsed. Falle sees a similarity between the role of the engineer today and the soldier of yore. In this scenario, it is important that the inventor should try not to be dragged down by the destructive forces around him. After all, it is not his problem. I have strong links with Lipschutz, an ex-BA pilot who for our purpose is an Englishman. Heinz Lipschutz, 42 Fontygary Rd., Rhoose, Glam. CF6 9DS (75 on 24apr94) 0446 710 688 He wrote "Confessions of a frustrated inventor" in Electronics and Wireless World, March 1988, which included lengthy mention of his U-plane, which he first patented 35 years before. It re-surfaced on p2 of THE INDEPENDENT, 29May91. Now, the technical journals announce it as an exciting new idea in submarines! The Chinese technical attache recently presented Lipschutz with a gold tie-pin in the shape of a submarine, and there is evidence of activity over the U-plane in various countries. So far, there is no activity whatsoever in England, as is to be expected. The U-plane goes down to great depths, where there possibly exist vast reserves of the fuel methane. Lipschutz's inventions are wide-ranging, and include a two stroke engine with double the power to weight ratio and better maintainability. Also a new kind of aircraft with major potential. He pressed Marconi during the second world war with his ideas for aircraft guidance, with no response. (Lipschutz says that in the war, more planes were lost trying to find their way home than due to German attack.) None of Lipschutz's inventions have been exploited. An article by Darrington in Wireless World discusses them. I will visit the Editor of Electronics and Wireless World in Jan95 to propose an article discussing the fear of innovative products shown by society . Someone called Clarke once said, "An ageing society develops elaborate defences against new ideas." I propose to cite my inventions, much discussed in Wireless World articles over the years, and also the Lipschutz inventions. My chief complaint is that, since Britain is getting out of high technology, it should close Engineering faculties in its universities. It is most unfair to inveigle young students into a cul de sac. However, the young students are in any case voting with their feet. The parallel with China in around 1500 is close. China was the greatest sea-faring nation. The ruling elite, seeing their hegemony threatened by international trade, made it illegal to construct any more sea-going vessels, and remustered their captains for river duty. They also used some technique to stop China's rapidly increasing pig iron production, the basis of heavy engineering. This strangled China's economic take-off, and of course led to China being carved up and colonised a century or so later. However, in Britain today, the fear of the development of new sources of wealth, posing as they do the threat of a change in the power structures in the country, is felt by the whole of the population, not merely by a ruling elite. The British are anxious to continue to be ruled by lawyers and similar - the old professions. These old professions will buy in new product from abroad. We will in due course become part of Greater Germany. The tragedy of the Englishman, as with the medaeval Chinese mandarin, is that he is more interested in power than in wealth. The major technical innovation poses too much of a threat to existing power structures, and so has to be suppressed. However, loss of wealth will later on lead to Britain's loss of independence. |