The list of scientific/technological breakthroughs in India is a long and impressive one. What is interesting for me personally are India inventions in the post patent era. Notable amongst these would be the works of JC Bose. A long standing controversy has been over whether Bose ought to be credited as the first inventor of the “wireless”. See this note by Varun Aggarwal which begins with:
“The aim of the present article is to acquaint the younger generation that the real inventor of wireless was not Guglielmo Marconi (Italy), but Jagadish Chandra Bose (India). The classic paper of Dr. P. K. Bondopadhyay [1] published by the IEEE has now established this fact.”
Bose’s antipathy towards patents is well known, although he is credited with being the first Indian to ever have filed a patent (thanks largely due to the compulsions of two of his friends). Prof Kochhar, in a note states:
“In May 1901, Bose wrote to his friend Rabindranath Tagore: “…the proprietor of a reputed telegraph company…came himself with a Patent form in hand…He proposed to take half of the profit and finance the business in the bargain. This multi-millionaire came to me abegging. My friend, I wish you could see that terrible attachment for gain in this country, that all engaging lucre, that lust for money and more money. Once caught in that trap there would have been no way out for me.”
If only Bose had understood the real value of patents and used it strategically to create wealth for the country!! Had he appreciated that a government cannot indefinitely fund R&D, he might have commercialised his inventions and used the money to fund more research and perhaps even to build more scientific infrastructure in the country –without necessarily falling into the “lust for money” trap. Particularly so, when his fellow scientists were not as charitable with their knowledge, but were using it strategically. Professor Kochar notes:
“There can be no doubt, as P.C. Ray reminded the audiance assembled in 1916 to greet Bose on his knighthood, that “If he had taken out patents for the apparatus and instruments which he had invented, he could have made millions by their sale”. More importantly, he would perhaps have become an Indian role-model for production of wealth through science. As it is, Bose abandoned radio waves altogether, there were no trained students to continue the research; and India’s tryst with technical physics came to a premature end.”
Anyway, an interesting counterfactual to pose would be:
What if JC Bose had patented his inventions? Would this have helped him gain recognition as the true and first inventor of the wireless? More importantly, would this have changed things in terms of how and to what extent wireless technology (and other technologies with which he is credited) might have developed in India and abroad. And would his have influenced the direction of science/technology in India and more importantly, the attitude of Indian scientists towards patents? I’d be intereted in hearing your views.
shamnad
here is another unsung hero who
was equally anti patent…”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellapragada_Subbarao”
Dear Ravi,
Thanks for the comment. YS was more anti-publicity than antipatent. An interesting write up here. http://medind.nic.in/jac/t01/i1/jact01i1p96.pdf
shamnad
i feel,it is the protectionist and the quota regime which made indians shy away from patents and not the decesion of bose….the paradigm shift(limited to pharma!) in patent filing is a result of globalisation & trips outcome…. the thought of making money(from his fellow indians ,who are already being looted by british)using patents would have deterred bose from patents!the paradigm shift has to go beyond pharma field ,which is only possible if india invests in both basic & higher education…lest we remain a country of “cyber coolies”
Dear Ravi,
You’re right–we need a paradigm shift. A shift that helps us move away from always seeing “patents” as bad things. As is always the case with most things in life, there is a “good” and a “bad” side to patents. Excessive patents or patents over trivial technology or patents that engender abusive practices (particularly in the context of pricing of essential drugs) are no doubt bad. But a patent can be a useful econonmic development tool too. And this is what JC Bose failed to recognise. He could have charged those that could afford it and not charged those who could not–without necessarily assuming that his patenting would always detrimentally impact his fellow citizens. Or perhaps he just wasn’t commercially savvy enough to realise the role of “licensing” and the flexibilities that a patentee has in this regard.
J C Bose is not the inventer of wireless. He is one of the earliet experimentalists.He took to lab work on what are today called microwaves after reading Hertz’ obituary in Nature.European scientists were using metal to make their radio receivers and transmitters. Since metal rusts in damp Bengal, Bose experimented with a whole lot of new substances, thus greatly enriching the new field of radio science.More than not patenting or not encashing the patent, it was his leaving physics altogether, that in retrospect prevented technical physics from taking roots in India ( cf . P.C. Ray’s success with chemistry).If Bose had been asked to choose between a physics Nobel prize and mainstream recognition for his plant physiology work , he would probably have chosen the latter.
Let us keep in mind that those were the days when respect from the West was more desired than wealth.This is understandavble keeping in mind the class composition of the then native leadership.
It is paradoxcal that an Indian
professor of physics was refusing to patent, while a spiritual lady ( Sister Nivedita) because of her industrial background was trying to interest him in royalties. Paradoxically , Bose had no compunction in accepting donnation from a western wealthy lady mrs Sarah Bull.
, Bose it would seem was seduced into spirituality by Tagore and others.
More than anything else, I think that it is Indian societies (read middle class) double standards regarding money that was responsible for Bose’s antipathy towards patenting.
Nilanjana
Dear Rajesh and Nilanjana,
Thanks for your comments. As Nilanjana puts it: seems to be a case of double standards–though Bose may have never seen it this way. In any case, I posted recently on a news item that captures Sri Sri Ravi Sankar-ji’s views on IP and spirituality–i.e. that the two are not incompatible. I wish he’d been around to advise Bose.
Compare Bose’s altruism with Marconi’s deeds. Pupils are still taught that Marconi invented the wireless (he did NOT). He did patent his device, however, and became very rich. Apparently, even this did not satisfy him. Consider Marconi’s crude (and successful) attempts to cash in on the Titanic disaster in April 1912. He was not willing to give the lists of survivors aboard the Carpathia for free, since the Carpathia had a Marconi set. The sordid details of this little episode would come out in the US hearings into the disaster.
Thanks for the comments Sudarshan,
I had no idea that Marconi had exploited his invention in this ruthless a manner.