426 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—F*. 
3. Desirability of some amendment in the law to allow wider scope to the Courts 
or other suitable tribunal to adjust differences between employer and employee by 
making awards to the employee or by directing the grant of licences in favour of 
employer or employee as the case may be. 
4. The desirability of basing monetary awards upon the profits derived from 
the working of the patent. 
5. Formulation of general principles applicable for the settlement of disputes 
between employer and employee regarding proprietorship of inventions. 
6. Consideration of the position of the employee where the State is the employer. 
7. The Commission of Awards to Inventors and recommendations of recent com- 
mittees with reference to inventions by servants of the Crown. 
8. Desirability of considering the interests of members of the public as well as 
the interests of the inventor and the Government Department. 
Discussion on The Rationalisation of Distribution. (Chairman: Sir 
R. Watey Conen. Mr. Epwarp B. Gorpon ; Major L. Urwick.) 
AFTERNOON. 
Discussion on Bridging the Gap between the Birth of an Idea and its 
Industrial Application. (Chairman: The Rt. Hon. Sir Joun 
Anperson, P.C., K.C.B. Mr. A. P. M. Fremine, C.B.E.) 
Mr. A. P. M. Fiemine, C.B.E. 
A review of present industrial conditions reveals the fact that the advantage 
which the long-established manufacturing countries have over those newly-established 
is minimised by two important factors, namely, the ease and rapidity with which new 
manufacturing facilities can be established and the fact that increasingly the bulk 
of human wants can be met by products that can be produced by mass-production 
methods, which require very little inherent skill on the part of the workers employed. 
In a country so dependent on its manufacturing industries as Great Britain, this 
means that the long-established industrial facilities now possess a diminishing margin 
of supremacy over those of more newly-established industrial competitors. Its 
chief asset is a body of workers possessing highly-developed individual skill. To 
employ this asset to the greatest advantage, however, necessitates its application to 
new industrial developments which require this individual skill. The development 
of new industrial activity is therefore a matter of great importance to this country, 
and one which is made even more important by the present great excess of unemploy- 
ment. 
New industrial activity always arises from an idea, which, if developed through 
certain definite stages, may become of commercial importance. There is at present 
no lack of ideas, but there is no nationally-organised means of completely bridging 
the gap between the birth of the idea containing the germ of a new industrial develop- 
ment and the manufacturable entity. The organisation necessary to provide the 
means for analysing the possibilities which new ideas afford of producing new lines of 
manufacture would involve :— 
The establishment of laboratory facilities. 
The employment of very highly-trained scientific staff. 
Facilities for semi-scale manufacture, which is the only means of enabling the 
commercial practicability of new projects to be determined. 
Association with finance houses to secure the financial arrangements for flotation. 
The establishment of manufacturing facilities for the new products thus developed. 
The means for selecting and training the various types of personnel required to 
‘ man’ the new industrial organisation. 
There are at present organisations which deal with parts of this sequence, but there 
is urgent need for the establishment of an organisation capable of carrying out the 
entire sequence of operations. 
PS ae. 
