SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



mation developed, are promptly made known to the 

 sponsor and become his exclusive property. Unless re- 

 leased by the sponsor, all the work is confidential, car- 

 ried on under the inviolate seal of professional ethics. 

 To the sponsor these last two points are vital, but they 

 are important, too, in the commercial development of 

 any discoveries made. 



Workers in government laboratories are bound to 

 take out "public interest patents" for their discoveries. 

 The Government then offers "shop rights" to any inter- 

 ested manufacturer. Theoretically, this is the perfect 

 procedure for the common good. Practically, it often 

 delays the commercial exploitation of valuable patents 

 since the interest displayed by manufacturers in public 

 patents is cooler than tepid. 



As an illustration, Professor Schoch of the University 

 of Texas has patented a process that reaches out boldly 

 toward the chemical application of atomic energy, a sort 

 of little second cousin of the atomic bomb. By bom- 

 barding natural gas with electrical discharges he pro- 

 duces acetylene. His discovery is not only interesting in 

 itself, but it opens up entirely new methods of inducing 

 chemical reactions. However, this significant patent is 

 so involved with the rights of both the University and 

 the state of Texas that experienced experts at the high- 

 est executive level of the three companies which are 

 most logical exponents of this invention have confessed 

 that the legal and political entanglements have stran- 



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