[compost_tea] Re: New Invention

From: David Hall <dchall8_at_texas.net>
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:28:02 -0000

The US Patent Office is a wonderful place.  I absolutely rely on it
for learning the "secrets" of many of life's pleasures.  If you want
to keep something a proprietary secret, the US Patent Office will
not help you. 

For example, if you find the site, search around for the secret to
Colonel Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken.  You'll find that his
famous "11 herbs and spices," is actually...salt, pepper, and MSG. 
I have also learned the recipe for garlic extract for fungal
disease control.  It's a great place. 

But for another glimpse at our patent system, when I was doing
research and development in the US Air Force, we periodically held
meetings for all our contractors to stay on top of the state of the
art that we were all working to push ahead.  At one meeting a
brainstorming session developed where a suggestion for a new concept
was made and was generally considered to be a pretty darned good
idea.  Everyone went home and the two companies that had a direct
interest in the idea were encouraged to start working on a practical
application of the idea.  Fast forward 90 days and lo and behold, a
different company was issued a patent for the idea!  We jumped
through a lot of hoops to get that patent canceled or rescinded or
whatever, but in the end, that company held the exclusive commercial
rights to any practical application of that idea with a free license
granted to the USAF.  In retrospect it turns out there probably was
no commercial application of that idea because it was so specific to
the weapon we were working on, but the idea that someone
could "steal" that idea from an open meeting really slammed the door
on our open exchange meetings. 

--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, sbrustkern@a... wrote:
> Hi Ted,

> Love your take on these sorts of things!  Not only are you very 
insightful,
> you do it with a wrters flair that i wish I had!

> Many thanks,
> Steve Brustkern




Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
click here


Yahoo! Groups Links

Received on Tue Nov 09 2004 - 02:17:43 EST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:35 EST