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Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

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On 20/09/2026 8:03 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:25:11 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
> 
>> On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a
>>> patent.
>>
>> It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The counter-current
>> continuous digestor was quite a tricky design - which is why Johan
>> Richter could never get any of his versions to work - and potential
>> users would set set up industrial scale trials.
> 
> What exactly stopped him getting the patent on the idea? Because
> that’s what patents are -- a Government-granted monopoly on an idea.

If you can't reduce it to practice - lawyer-ese for making it work - it 
isn't a valid patent. As far as I know Johan Richter never applied for a 
patent because he never had a scheme that looked like working. My father 
made a fuss about his localised counter-current wash at pulp outlet of 
the digestor, but not in terms that lead me to think that it was a 
patent-winning innovation. There was definitely some ingenuity involved 
but I wasn't close enough to the action to have much of an idea. I do 
remember a pneumatic subtracting circuit that got the revers flow right.

The digestor got computer control with a Ferranti Aurgus 400 computer a 
few years later, and that worked more reliably when they went over from 
Paxolin printed circuit boards to expoxy-bonded glass fibre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_paper

My father was responsible for that installation too, but it did happen a 
few year later.

>>> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb.
>>> Did he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken by
>>> Joseph Swan.
>>
>> Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.
> 
> The patent went to the person who thought of the idea, not the one who
> made it work.

The US patent went to Thomas Edison who had made his idea work in the 
US, and the UK and European patents were taken out by Joseph Swan who 
had made his version work in the UK. By setting up a joint company, 
Edison and Swan avoided a lot of expensive litigation

>> Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same
>> time, and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit
>> them.
> 
> Only after Edison fought unsuccessfully to overturn Swan’s patent, I
> believe.

That gets it backwards. Swan sued Edison in the British court for patent 
infringement when Edison tried to sell his lamps in the UK and won.

Edison started countersueing Swan in the US in 1882, but his legal team 
didn't like their chances, whence the joint company.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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Re: google reads your mail "Johann \"Myrkraverk\" Oskarsson" <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-16 23:39 +0800
  Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-17 16:51 +1000
    Re: google reads your mail Lane W <cactus_DAC@yahoo.com> - 2026-09-17 02:43 -0600
      Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-17 23:34 +1000
        Re: google reads your mail Lane W <cactus_DAC@yahoo.com> - 2026-09-17 08:43 -0600
          Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-18 15:36 +1000
            Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-18 22:04 +0000
              Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 02:25 +1000
                Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-19 22:03 +0000
                Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 16:13 +1000
                Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-20 08:09 +0000
                Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 18:25 +1000

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