A number of inventions were described in Scout to the Pole. People in our society have a magical concept of patents. They think, once a patent is granted, the inventor automatically gets rich. Well, one more category of lies. I am a listed inventor on 7 patents. Only one has generated any income, and that was only a few thousand dollars. It doesn’t even come close to the $100K+ cost invested to get those patents. Correct again! The performance of the patent systems in the world are a far cry from what they are intended to do. But that’s a discussion for another novel.

What I want to do in this section of the web site is list inventions that I think can be very useful for society but are stuck in file drawers somewhere collecting dust. To begin this list, I will describe two of my own, which are discussed in Scout to the Pole: the Micromuscle and Wireless Money. These are described on pages shown in the Invention menu tab above. Both are available for licensing.

Then I describe some other inventions that have not been patented. One is the CAM ( Content Addressable Memory ), which was also presented in Scout to the Pole. Another is a new approach to Fibonacci Numbers.

I actually came up with the concept for the CAM in 1983. Some people told me I should immediately apply for a patent. But, as was discussed in the book, some inventions, because they plow such new ground, are broadly rejected by the business world which already has substantial investments in “legacy” products that the new invention would displace. The prime example I discussed was the invention of the Xerox machine. All of Carlson’s patents had run out before he found any support to develop his concepts. So, rather than apply for a patent, I treated the CAM concept as a “trade secret”. There is actually a broad body of law related to that. AND, it was a good thing I did. After an intense effort to find support for the idea from ’83 to ’87, I backed off. Every few years, I’d try again. I contacted the top people at “all” the top players in the computer industry: IBM, Intel, Apple, HP, Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, Google etc. I contacted the chambers of commerce in Japan and Taiwan. I contacted firms in Israel, UK, France and Germany. They all actually replied: people like Lou Gerstner, Carly Fiorina and Steve Jobs! Same answer, “NO INTEREST.” So, it’s been how long now? 36 years! Good thing I didn’t get a patent.

Anyone interested in any of these inventions, please contact me.
Nanook