A naïve man..? 17 12 14 (18) 25 1 30

17 12 13

The other day I was wearing this old jacket for the something like 4th successive occasion after not being able to wear it for some years past because my wife didn't used to like it... and the only thing that balked me about it was this pin in the label with the caduceus emblem of commerce displayed in bronze on it, in recognition of my 10 years' service to industry in this my adoptive country, which got me thinking that after a further 10 years' service by which time I was directing my own Management Consultancy it would have been my job to apply to the local Chamber of Commerce for the next step up to a silver pin? After some deliberation I thought what the hell why not write to them at least to see whether I am still eligible to apply, and at the same time mention the other 4 or 5 years’ service from way back when..?

All this got me thinking about the work ethic in these northern countries which is pretty strong, and so I began to recount some of my successes and failures and pondering some of the details..? Like when our MD demanded I seek a patent for my invention the lightest food casing in the business in my naïvety I didn't think the thing worthy of a patent being granted for it, but nevertheless I set to work and the application went forward to the local patent office with the MD's, my partner the other R and D Director's, and lastly my name on it, to see how it fared in the patent office? After a year with some revision it was published also in the European, the US and Japanese Patent Offices, plus some other countries which at the time didn't have the industries to make the thing, and after a little while longer it started getting attacked.

Well to cut a long story short this patent failed in all countries except Japan where a similar patent had been published which pre-dated mine but which during the seven years before it was examined there it fell by the wayside no longer worthy of the "inventor" making the annual payments for its upkeep, when my patent was granted. Now throughout this process I anticipated the outcome and had a second application drawn up for much the same intellectual property but in the meantime all the main players in the company had changed: either having moved on or forced out, so that my invention by that time was only of interest to me, or so it seemed, and so it was filed with me as the sole inventor. 

Thinking further I decided it generated so little interest because it was my invention rather than the next guy’s, this guy who I reasoned probably down-played its value instead, and so would not wish to have his name associated with it, although by this time he had my directorship plus the MD’s Directorship for the Marketing function, plus his own for Production all on the same business card. I recall at one point someone made the comment they didn’t know why we were selling this product range to the Rumanian and Bulgarian markets and so an investigation was launched into its profitability within the overall scheme of things only to discover these were the most profitable after the more prestigious US and home markets, all the EU countries, those of South America, etc., etc., way down the lists..?

Some said this guy had a narcissistic personality disorder but I was fortunate in that after once taking my job away he began to give large tracts of it back to me which kept me gainfully employed all those years to my 65^th birthday, and beyond for a further 3 years when I had to set up my Consultancy: to continue the defence of these patents and maintain the attack on like-minded intellectual property of competitors, which finally gave me 3 victories to 2 defeats in the patent courts, with viable patents being granted in the EU and US Patent Offices in addition to the Japanese, plus the continuation of other aspects of the job that required a total of 20 years… Have a good day everyone: being somewhat naïve and of modest means does have some compensations in this our changing world, or what?