The public need and the role of the inventor

Abstract

The recommendation of the National Inventors Council also arose from the Council's concern about the technological problems facing our Nation: increasing international competition, dwindling productivity, massive environmental problems, and the necessity for improving the quality of life for its citizens.The Council felt that the challenge is to revitalize our capacity for beneficial technological innovation, strengthening our industries at home and bolstering our trade position abroad. The purpose of this conference was to examine the economic and social effects of invention and innovation, and the ways in which they are influenced by selected legal and institutional structures.The conference also addressed itself to the inventor's contribution to the invention and innovation process, comparing the roles played by independent and employed inventors. The foreseeable trends in policies and practices affecting the inventor were also examined.The conference was attended by representatives from Government, industry, universities, research institutes, trade associations, and the patent bar.Following the presentation of the papers, the conferees participated in six panels on the following sub- The recommendations of the panel workshops follow the papers in this volume.One of the main topics of concern to the conference was the recent deterioration of the regard held for the patent system. The Panel on the Role of the Patent System made recommendations with a view toward strengthening the patent system and Patent Office procedures, and toward preventing the erosion of the validity of patents in the courts.The conferees were also concerned with the lack of uniformity in Government patent policy, and the problem of Government retention of patents. The Panels on Government, Industry and Education each recommended that the Government adopt a uniform patent policy, and that it should not retain patent rights to inventions resulting from Government-supported work, but only retain a license to practice for Government use, thus releasing inventions for further development and public use.The role of the employed inventor was discussed in several papers, the systems of employee compensa- -that Government-financed fellowship programs be set up to encourage creative engineering -that more innovation centers be created at or near universities -that funds be set up for research and development activities in areas of critical national needs -that industry internship experience be encouraged -that some provision be made for continuing education for engineersThe international aspects of patents and incentives for inventors were discussed by the sixth panel. The panel felt that every effort should be made to develop a world patent system, with the exception that the "first-to-invent" system should be retained in the United States. It Figure 4 is a prototype of a machine that punches holes through paper cleanly, cheaply, and in a programmed manner. Figure 5 Five applications for patents on transistor devices were filed prior to the ...

Printed Electronics Based on Inorganic Semiconductors: From Processes and Materials to Devices

“…Functionally, the FETs are interface-dominated electronic building blocks that may either be used to amplify the output power or can function as an electronic switch. [1][2][3] The very high reliability and low power consumption of FETs have immediately led to the replacement of vacuum tubes already in 1955; [4] the first demonstration of an integrated circuit (IC) combining multiple FETs took place in 1958. [5] Since then, riding on strong and continuous developments in fabrication and miniaturization technologies, the transistor integration density could follow the well-known Moore's law where doubling the number of FETs on a chip within every two years was predicted by Moore.…”