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Research And Development
Research and Development
Submitted by
Samuel F. Castronuevo
Table of Contents
Page/s
Mission and Purpose of Research and Development………………. 2
Development Strategies……………………………………………… 3
Organization of Research and Development……………………….. 3
Technological Advances through R & D………………………….… 4
Invention………………………………………………………. 4
Innovation……………………………………………………… 5
Diffusion………………………………………………..……… 6
Imitation and R & D Incentives……………………………………. 6
Imitation Problem………………………………………………. 7
. Patents…………………………………………………………. 7
Copyrights and Trademarks…………………………………… 8
Brand Name Recognition……………………………………… 9
Trade Secrets…………………………………………………. 9
Research and Development Expenditures………………………. 10
University and Government Scientific Research………………… 10
Technological Advancement and Development of Modern PC…. 12
Research for New Materials………………………………………. 16
Research and Future Trends……………………………………… 19
Bibliography
………………………………………………………… 28
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
MISSION AND PURPOSE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Manufacturing companies’ Research and Development (R & D)
groups significantly contribute to United States’ fast-paced industrial
technology development. They promote industrial growth, and enhance the
social well-being of the people.
Normally, companies, especially those with enough resources, accept
research contracts from the government and the private-sector to undertake
the research of:
- Medium and long-term applied research in development of generic,
forward-looking, and advanced technologies;
- Short-term research to improve processes and to develop new
products according to industrial needs.
Most reset projects will go through a trial mass production to ensure
the feasibility of new industrial technologies and plans for strategic
withdrawals upon project completion. The research results are disseminated
to the industrial sector in a timely and appropriate fashion in accordance
with the principles of justice, fairness, and openness. They also provide
industrial services to foster the technological development of small and
medium-sized businesses and cultivate human resources in industrial
technology for the benefit of the nation.
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES
Research development strategy depends on the present growth of
environment and the industrial development potential of the future. The
strategy is also attuned to international trends, emphasizes environmental
protection and safety issues, as well as preservation of natural resources.
Management of Research and Development constantly
reviews and revises its task loading to be in effective in its future search for
new discipline and avenue of research.
In carrying out science and technology projects, manufacturing
companies constantly update their focus on forward-looking, innovative
technology research and development, and set new goals for promoting
advanced technologies. In contrast to the case of fundamental scientific
research, the major purpose is the creation of maximum benefits for industry
in a five-to-ten- year time frame.
ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Successful companies relied mostly on the abilities of their core of
management personnel. Some are also encouraging participative type of
management where inputs direct from operators and plant personnel are look
at and recommendation to adapt any measures to pursue or to drop the
suggestions received. Below is an example of an organization focused on
Research and Development.
Research Division
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT THROUGH R & D
INVENTION
The most basic element of technological advance is invention: the
first discovery of a product or process through the use of imagination,
ingenious thinking, and experimentation and the first proof that it will work.
While invention is a process, the result of the process, unfortunately, is also
called invention. The first prototype (basic working model) of the telephone,
the automobile, the television set, the microchip - each of these is an
invention.
Invention is usually based on scientific knowledge and is the product
of the individuals, either working on their own or as members of corporate R
& D staffs.
INNOVATION
Innovation, a second element of technological change, draws directly
on invention. While invention is “first discovery and proof of workability,”
innovation is the first successful commercial introduction of a new product,
the first use of a new method, or the creation of a new form of business
enterprise. Innovation is of two broad types: product innovation, which
involves new and improved products or services; and process innovation,
which involves new and improved production or distribution methods.
Unlike inventions, innovations, such as cannot be patented.
Nevertheless, innovation is a major factor in competition since it sometimes
enables a firm to “leapfrog” competitors by making their products or
processes obsolete. For example, personal computers coupled with software
for word processing unceremoniously pushed some typewriter
manufacturers into relative obscurity.
But innovation need not destroy existing firms. Aware that new
products and processes can threaten their survival, existing firms have a
powerful incentive to engage continuously in R & D of their own.
Innovative new products and processes often enable these firms to maintain
or increase their profit. The introduction of aluminum cans by Reynolds,
disposable contact lenses by Johnson & Johnson, and scientific calculators
by Hewlett-Packard are good examples. Thus, innovation can either
diminish or strengthen existing market power.
DIFFUSION
The spread of an innovation through imitation or copying is known as
diffusion. To take advantage of new profit opportunities or slow the erosion
of their profit, new and existing firms emulate the successful innovations of
others. Years ago McDonald’s successfully introduced the fast-food
hamburgers; Burger King, Wendy’s, and other firms soon copied that idea.
Chrysler Corporation profitably introduced a luxury version of its Jeep
Grand Cherokee; others manufacturers including Ford, Acura, and Mercedez
have countered with luxury sport-utility vehicles of their own. In each of
these cases, innovation has led eventually to widespread imitation-that is,
diffusion.
IMITATION AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES
IMITATION PROBLEM
A firm’s rivals may be able to imitate its new product or process,
greatly reducing the originator’s profit from its R & D effort. As just one
example, in the 1980’s U.S. auto firms took apart Japanese Honda Accords,
piece by piece, to discover the secrets of their high quality. This reverse
engineering - which ironically was perfected earlier by the Japanese –
helped the U.S. firms incorporate innovative features into their own cars.
This type of imitation is perfectly legitimate and fully anticipated; it is often
the main path to widespread diffusion of an innovation.
In fact, a dominant firm which is making large profits from its existing
products may let smaller firms in the industry incur the high costs of product
innovation while it closely monitors their successes and failures. The
dominant firm then moves quickly to imitate any successful new product; its
goal is to become the second firm to embrace the innovation. In using this so
called fast-second strategy, the dominant firm count on its own product-
improvement abilities, marketing prowess, or economies of scale to prevail.
Example: Royal Crown introduced the first diet cola, but Diet Coke
and Diet Pepsi dominate diet-cola sales today.
PATENTS
Imitation and the fast-second strategy raise an important question:
What incentive is there for any firm to bear the expenses and risks of
innovation if competitors can imitate its new or improved products? Why
not let others bear the costs and risks of product development and then just
imitate the successful innovations? Although we have seen that this may be a
plausible strategy in some situations, there are several protections for, and
potential advantages to, taking the lead.
Some technological breakthroughs, specifically inventions, can be
patented. Then they cannot be legally imitated for two decades. The purpose
of patents is, in fact, to reduce imitation and its negative effect on the
incentive for engaging in R & D. Example: Polaroid’s patent of its instant
camera enabled it to earn high economic profits for many years. When
Kodak “cloned” the camera, Polaroid won a patent infringement lawsuit
against its rival. Kodak not only had to stop producing its version of the
camera but also had to buy back the Kodak instant cameras it had sold and
pay millions of dollars of damages to Polaroid.
COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS
Copyrights protect publishers of books, computer software, movies,
videos, and musical compositions from having their works copied.
Trademarks give the original innovators of products the exclusive right to
use a particular product name. By reducing the problem of direct copying,
these legal protections increase the incentive for product innovation. They
have been strengthened worldwide through recent international trade
agreements.
BRAND-NAME RECOGNITION
Along with trademark protection, brand-name recognition may give
the original innovator a major marketing advantage for years or even
decades.
Consumers often identify a new product with the firm first introducing and
popularizing it in the mass market. Examples: Levi’s blue jeans, Kleenex
soft tissues, Johnson and Johnson’s Band-Aids, Sony’s Walkman, and
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
TRADE SECRETS
Some innovations involve trade secrets, without which competitors
cannot imitate the product or process. Example: Coca-Cola has successfully
kept its formula for Coke a secret from potential rivals. Many other firms
have perfected special production techniques known only to them. In a
related advantage, a firm’s head-start with a new product often allows it to
achieve substantial cost reductions through learning by doing. The
innovator’s lower cost may enable it to continue to profit even after imitators
have entered the market.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURES
As it relates to businesses, the term “research and development” is
used loosely to include direct efforts toward invention, innovation, and
diffusion. However, government also engages in R&D, particularly that
related to national defense. In 1995, total U.S. R&D expenditures (business
plus government) were $179 billion. This amount was about 2.5 percent of
U.S. GDP and is a reasonable measure of the emphasis an economy puts on
technological advance.
American manufacturers and businesses spent $132 billion on R&D in
1995. U.S. firms collectively channeled 74 percent of their R&D
expenditures to “development” (innovation and imitation, the route to
diffusion). They used another 21 percent for applied research, roughly
equivalent to pursuing invention. Only 5 percent of business R&D
expenditures went for basic research - the search for general scientific
principles. Of course, different industries, and different firms within
industries, vary greatly in the amounts of emphasis they place on these three
processes.
UNIVERSITY AND GOVERNMENT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Only 5 percent of manufacturers and business R&D spending in the
United States is for basic scientific research. This percentage is so small
because scientific principles, as such, cannot be patented, nor do they
usually have immediate commercial uses. Yet new scientific knowledge is
highly important to technological advance. For that reason, entrepreneurs
actively study the scientific output of university and government laboratories
to find discoveries with commercial applicability.
In fact, government and university labs have been fertile grounds for
many technological breakthroughs, including hybrid seed corn, nuclear
energy, satellite communications, the computer “mouse,” genetic
engineering, and the Internet. Entire new high-tech industries- computers
and biotechnology, for example-have sprung up close to major research
universities and government laboratories. And nations with strong scientific
communities tend to have the most technologically progressive firms and
industries.
Also, firms increasingly help fund university research which relates to
their products. Today, the separation between university scientists and
innovators is narrowing; scientists increasingly realize their work may have
commercial value and are teaming with innovators to share in the potential
profit. A few firms, of course, do find it profitable to conduct basic scientific
research on their own. New scientific knowledge can give them a major
head-start in creating an invention or new product. This is particularly true
in the manufacturing and pharmaceutical industry, where it is not uncommon
for firms to parlay new scientific knowledge from their corporate labs into
new, patentable products.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE MODERN PC
Technological advance is clearly evident in the development of the
modern personal computer and the emergence of the Internet. Here is a brief
history of these events.
1945 Grace Murray Hopper finds a dead moth between relay contacts in the
experimental Mark II computer at Harvard University. Whenever the
computer subsequently malfunctions, workers set out to “debug” the device.
1946 ENIAC is revealed. It is a precursor to the modern-day computer that
relies on 18,000 vacuum tubes and fills 3000 cubic feet of space.
1947 AT&T scientists invent the “transfer resistance device” later known as
the transistor. It replaces the less reliable vacuum tubes in computers.
1961 Bob Noyce (who later founded Intel Corporation) and Jack Kilby
invent the first integrated circuit, which miniaturizes electronic circuitry into
a single silicon chip.
1964 IBM introduces the System/360 computer. Configured as a system, it
takes up nearly the same space as two tennis courts.
1965 Digital Equipment Corporation unveils its PDP-8, the first relatively
small-sized computer (a “minicomputer”).
1969 A networking system called ARPANET is born; it is the beginning of
the Internet.
1971 Intel introduces its 4004 processor (a “microprocessor”). The $200
chip is the size of a thumbnail and has as much computing capability as the
earlier ENIAC.
1975 Xerox markets Alto, the first personal computer (a “microcomputer”).
Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft. MITS Corporation’s Altair 8800
arrives on the scene. It contains the Intel’s 8080 microprocessor that Intel
developed a year earlier to control traffic lights.
1977 Apple II, Commodore’s PET, and Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 go on
sale, setting the stage for the personal computer revolution.
1981 IBM enters the market with its personal computer powered by the
Intel 8800 chip and operated by the Microsoft Disc Operating System (MS-
DOS). Osborne Computer markets the Osborne 1, the first self-contained
microcomputer, but within two years the firm declares bankruptcy. Logitech
commercializes the “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System,” invented
earlier by Douglas Engelbart in a government-funded research lab. Someone
dubs it a “computer mouse” because it appears to have a tail.
1982 Compaq Computer “clones” the IBM machines; others do the same.
Eventually Compaq becomes the leading seller of personal computers.
1984 Apple introduces its Macintosh computer, with its “user-friendly”
icons, attached mouse, and a preloaded software. College student Michael
Dell founds Dell Computers, which builds personal computers and sells
them through mail order. IBM, Sears Roebuck, and CBS team up to launch
Prodigy Services, the first on-line computer business.
1985 Microsoft releases its Windows graphical interface operating system
that improves upon MS-DOS. Ted Waitt starts a mail-order personal
computer business (Gateway 2000) out of his South Dakota barn.
1990 Microsoft introduces Windows 3.0 which, like Macintosh, features
windows, icons, and pull-down menus. Apple sues Microsoft for copyright
infringement.
1991 The World Wide Web (an Internet system) is invented.
1993 Intel introduces its first of several Pentium chips, which greatly speeds
up computing. The courts reject Apple’s claim that Microsoft violated its
copyrights on its Macintosh operating system.
1994 Marc Andreessen starts up Netscape Communications and markets
Netscape Navigator, which quickly becomes the leading software browser
for the emerging Internet. David Filo and Jerry Yang develop Yahoo, a
system for locating material stored on the Internet.
1995 Microsoft releases Windows 95 operating system, and it becomes the
dominant operating system of personal computers (90 percent market share).
Microsoft is now well established as the world’s leading software producer.
Sun Microsystems introduces Java, an Internet programming language.
1996 Playing catch-up with Netscape, Microsoft develops Microsoft
Internet Explorer and gives it away free. More than 40 million personal
computers are manufactured worldwide during this year alone.
1997 Oracle Computers introduces a relatively inexpensive “network”
computer that bypasses Windows and goes directly to the Internet. Forbes
magazine reports that among the top-50 wealthiest Americans are several
people associated with the personal computer business: Gates ($40 billion),
Allen ($17 billion), Lawrence Ellison (Oracle; database and spreadsheet
software, $9 billion), Gordon Moore (Intel; $9 billion), Steven Ballmer
(Microsoft; $8 billion), Dell ($6 billion), William Hewlett (Hewlett-Packard;
$4 billion), and Waitt ($3 billion). More than one out of four U.S. household
have a personal computer, and the use of the Internet explodes. Employment
in the U.S. software industry tops $2 million.
2000 IBM Corporation introduced the world’s most powerful computer.
IBM says its massive “ASCI White” computer can perform 12 trillion
calculation per second.
RESEARCH FOR NEW MATERIALS
Modern material scientist and alchemist do investigate why a material
behaves the way it does. Then, when they start to get answers, they begin
asking , “ Why not?” as they make new materials that behave in ways
different from anything under the sun. These advanced materials unleash a
vast array of new technologies- from faster and safer airplanes to heart
valves that can extend life for decades. Sometimes the results are startling-as
in a metal alloy so moldable it can be blown into a bubble, or a ceramic that
goes into the heart of an automobile engine without melting or breaking, or a
fabric that stops bullets, or a glass that is so clear you can look through a
piece a hundred miles thick and not even know it is there.
A recent development shows how important this can be. Modern
digital computers, large NC machines and or laptops are now dependent
upon microprocessors-computer chips made from crystals of silicon and
small amounts of other elements. Silicon, an excellent material for
controlling electrons, is a semiconductor. Superconductivity, the flow of
electricity without resistance, was discovered in 1911, but it was
phenomenon that could occur only at extremely low temperatures. In order
to superconduct, metals needed to be immersed in liquid helium at 4 kelvin
or minus 460 F making the process expensive and impractical for everyday
use. In 1986, IBM scientists cooled a ceramic pellet of copper, barium, and
rare earth lanthanum oxides and watched it lose electrical resistance at 30 K.
This discovery set the scientific world off on a wonderful chase to find even
better superconducting materials.
In 1987, a team headed by physicist Paul Chu of the University of
Houston replaced the rare earth lanthanum with an yttrium compound. Chu’s
recipe lost resistance at 93 K- well above 77 K, the temperature of liquid
nitrogen. This breakthrough was key: Nitrogen is abundant , easier to cool
than helium and a fraction of the cost. This promising discovery jolted the
scientific and engineering world. Since then, superconductors had become
the catchphrase springing loose money for research and fantasies for about
“flying” trains that travel 300 miles an hour using magnetic levitation, cheap
electricity that can be stored at will, and superefficient motors. However, the
problems have been daunting. ceramic materials of high temperature
superconductors are often brittle, unpredictable, and fickle. They tend to lose
their superconductivity when anything but small currents are applied, and
they lack the flexibility to be shaped into useful forms, such as wires or
coils.
Innovative researches and approaches are under way to overcome
these obstacles. MIT scientists are making wires from easily shaped
metallics, then oxidizing the wires into superconducting ceramics. At a
nearby lab, MIT chemical engineers are exploring the potential of pure
carbon materials, known as fullerenes-or buckyballs-to act as high
temperature superconductors. Long tubes of carbon atoms conceivably can
be made cheaply and in large numbers; such buckytubes would be very
strong, and under the right conditions could be made into superconducting
wires.
Still, after more than half a decade of intensive research, no agreed
upon theory exists that explains the behavior of high temperature
superconductors, nor is there any consensus about how best to make such
materials into everyday products but when success is finally achieved,
superconducting wires will be at the heart of so many applications.
Modern materials, instead of being used for building things, are often
used for controlling energy and information. Across the ages, technology
advanced with metals through an intensive R & D. Today, new processes
arrange metal grains to create tougher, easier-to-shape alloys, such as
superplastic steel that can stretch 11 times its original length. Copper, which
carried telegraph , telephone, and other communications for more than a
hundred years, has given way to glass, in the form of fiber optic cables. The
digital signals in these cables carry much more information than copper
conductors of the same size or cost.
Material scientists are working now to make new kinds of glass that
further reduce the cost of optical-fiber networks. They are making the glass
so pure that light can travel in it for a hundred miles without any loss. MIT
engineers are now developing new forms of silicon that will carry light
signals even more efficiently than the best glass. For them, silicon is the key
to recent technological progress.
Another promising new material being researched and developed is
nitinol. The smart wire nitinol remembers its shape. The nickel and titanium
alloy can be twisted into spiral, heated, and dipped in ice and reheated and it
would twist back to spiral. Makers of spring and bra supports find uses for
the “memory alloy”. In addition, auto manufacturing R & D scientists are
exploring the use of nitrogen ions. Nitrogen ions, used to beam down on a
car crankshaft, harden the metal without the potential distortion of high-heat
treatments. Such advances project new chapters for the 5,500 -year history
of metals.
RESEARCH AND FUTURE TRENDS
With the integration of the modern PC to the manufacturing
operations, a myriad of future and meaningful research and development
will be inevitable. In June of 2000, IBM Corporation confirmed that it
would soon deliver from its Research and Development Center what it calls
the fastest and most powerful computer ever to the Department of Energy’s
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The machine is really 512 computers and
8,192 microprocessors linked together. It’s designed to precisely simulate
the explosion of nuclear weapons, so the US won’t have to perform nuclear
testing. “ASCI White”, as the new computer is called, can perform 12
trillion calculations per second. ASCI stands for Advanced Strategic
Computing Initiative. The computer’s fast calculation capability is
equivalent of every man, woman and child on Earth adding 2,000 numbers
per second. That’s about four times faster than the previous record holder,
another IBM creation that performed 3 trillion calculations per second or 3
teraflops. The average home PC can perform a maximum of about 400
million calculations per second, about 30,000 times slower than IBM’s new
creation. Other facts about the ASCI White according to IBM:
-It covers 9,920 square feet of floor space, equivalent to the size of two
basketball courts.
-It weighs 212,600 pounds or 106 tons- the equivalent of 17 full-size Indian
elephants
-It requires 1.2 megawatts of power enough to power 1,000 typical homes.
-The microprocessors inside contain 2,000 miles of copper wiring, enough to
stretch from Washington, D.C. to Phoenix, Arizona.
-It has 6.2 terabytes of memory, 97,000 times more than the average desktop
PC with 64 MB of memory.
-It would take one person with a calculator 10 million years to tabulate the
number of calculations that ASCI White can handle in a single second.
-If deployed as a web server, ASCI white could process an online transaction
from every man, woman and child on the planet in one minute.
With ongoing Research and Development projects like that of IBM’s ,
manufacturers are now channeling their resources to every inch of
technological innovation to keep up with the advent of computer
applications and breakthroughs.
There are countless other innovations, too numerous for confinement
that will also brighten the future. Some might be considered frivolous but
innovation that can be translated into successful product demonstrably
affects the economies of the world. That, in itself, is an awesomely
important consideration for the future everywhere, particularly in the United
States.
In the past fifty years or so American innovators have consistently
demonstrated a remarkable talent for discovery - the ability to combine
dedicated research and creative thinking and conceive completely new
methods of doing things - in such areas as electronics, communications,
materials, and biotechnology. There is strong evidence to support the thesis
that other countries are rapidly closing America’s lead in productive
manufacturing research. But the familiar plaint that America’s researchers
have somehow lost the knack for innovative thinking is simply not
substantiated by fact. It is perhaps more reasonable to look at related areas
when pondering why so many of the things in the overflowing horn of
plenty, one symbol of America’s wealth and well-being, now wear “Made
Elsewhere” labels.
Time and again American scientists have created remarkable
innovations - that have led to revolutionary new technologies - that have
produced successful products - that have ended up being exploited in a
masterly way by industries - in countries other than the United States.
Available evidence indicates that marketing may well be that part of the
“Yankee ingenuity” equation the United States has lost. As America looks
toward the future, leaders in the private sector must encourage the
development of vigorous new techniques that will allow their own firms and
the U.S. economy to make better use of the innovators’ creations.
Recent history is packed with examples of America’s inability or
unwillingness to compete for huge markets it appeared capable of
dominating, and there are signs those problems will worsen before they
improve. The departed VCR industry has become a classic illustration of
squandered opportunity. Yet the current rush toward high definition TV in
the rest of the world presages another $25 to $50 billion industry that U.S.
companies seem disinclined to enter. France and England now appear to be
enjoying some admittedly expensive success with their supersonic airliner
programs - the United States dropped SST research years ago. West
Germany and Japan are investing hundreds of millions of dollars for major
train systems - America seems a likely customer because it no longer has
plans for its own.
A number of national economies have gained glowing health because
their governments either funded or helped fund practical research and
development programs. In many instances these programs led to commercial
applications that play a familiar role in American life. The U.S. government
has not been tightfisted in appropriating money for research, but, from a
practical business viewpoint, its record for obtaining an appropriate return
on its investment is questionable. Clearly, some better mechanism than the
systems now in place must be found to decide priorities - on a governmental
level - that will permit American innovators to create the products that will
benefit their fellow citizens and all of mankind.
In recent years we have advanced from the vacuum tube to the
transistor to the microchip, from typewriter carbon paper to the modern
duplicating machine, from the early death certificate to organ transplants,
miracle drugs, and genetically engineered health aids - because forward-
looking, determined people were convinced there was a better way. But
innovation does not occur in a vacuum.
Great innovations often spring from the focused thinking of an
intelligent, imaginative individual - a phenomenon that is as prevalent today
as it was in the past. The most noticeable difference between the innovators
of the past and those of today is that the latter have much better access to a
larger body of knowledge. This, in itself, is an indication of the innovative
processes that have hastened the arrival of the communications age and
high tech revolution. Trial and error is still an integral part of scientific
research, but newer approaches have often reduced the discovery time span.
Chester Carlson, inventor of the xerography process, is the only one of our
innovators who fits the classic mold of the solitary genius who struggles
alone. It is no accident that his travail began in the earliest time period of our
investigations and he was forced to turn to others before his dream began to
be fulfilled in 1950. Yet the key to making xerography a commercial success
was an organization that allowed extensive innovation in development,
manufacturing, and marketing of his invention.
Another of our innovators, Fred Smith of Federal Express, was an
entrepreneur rather than an inventor. He also displayed enormous individual
zeal in launching the innovation that was the product of his own mind,
though he is the first to insist that he didn’t do it alone. Far more common in
recent years are brilliant individuals such as Brattain, Bardeen, Shockley,
Maiman, Alberts, Borel, Maurer, and Ginsburg, whose achievements
resulted from work performed in commercial laboratories and research
centers.
Significantly, few if any of these industrial innovators had personal
financial gain as the primary motivation for their efforts. The quest for
knowledge, the desire to improve the lot for humanity, and the prestige of
historic accomplishment were of primary importance to most of them. Of
course, it must be stressed that few had much choice in the matter. Although
permitting the name of the individual scientist to be given on the patent,
virtually all major research organizations require employees to sign advance
agreements that automatically confer ownership of the patents - and the
subsequent financial rewards - to the employer. This has always been a
contentious issue between scientist and corporation, and it is no coincidence
that many of the innovators left their parent companies soon after making
their discoveries in an attempt to form their own businesses and thus profit
from their work.
Commercially successful innovation must be accepted as a long-term
process that requires a variety of total commitments from organizations that
hope to capitalize from it. Consider the time spent by numerous researchers
at Bell Labs in investigating the photovoltaic effect in silicon until the three
inventors produced a working transistor, then add the years that passed
before others elsewhere began to find important applications for the device.
Theodore Maiman took approximately two years to develop the first
working laser after Townes and Schawlow had published their breakthrough
paper on the subject, but finding commercial uses for that and the many
other types of lasers that followed is an ongoing process that seems destined
to produce even more important applications in the years ahead.
Innovators at 3M labored for eleven full years before they could
produce any kind of commercial product out of the mysterious and risky
fluorochemistry project the company had started in 1945. As for Sandoz and
Merck, the time needed to discover a miracle drug is often measured in
decades, and the firm that pays for the research cannot expect to begin
recouping its investment until long after the breakthrough is achieved. In
every instance, the potential rewards of innovation must be carefully
weighed against the time, expense, and possible failure of the entire process.
There are many innovative wonders on and beyond the horizon that
will make our futures better because of imagination, dedication, and
expertise of individuals and organizations all over the glove. A rededication
to the can-do spirit of the past and the discovery of an effective mechanism
for deciding scientific priorities, in balance with humanitarian and economic
needs, would help America’s innovators to make many more exiting
contributions in the innovative years ahead.
Bibliography
Friedel, Robert , New Materials: Frontline of Discovery, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.,1998
McConnell, R & D: Economics, 14th Edition,McGraw Hill, 1999
Diebold, John, Discoveries, Inventions and Breakthroughs of Our Time, New York Times, 1990
MSNBC: Pencil News for Kids, World’s Powerful Computer, http://www.msnbc.com/local/pencilnews/250631.asp
Pursell, Carroll, Technology in Western Civilization, Oxford University Press, 1994
Amrine, Harold T, Manufacturing Organization and Management, 6th Edition, Prentice Hall, 1993
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