Many of us probably remember the innovative
Baygen wind-up shortwave and AM/FM radios from
years ago. Here's a poignant article in today's
London Telegraph about inventor Trevor Baylis,
and how other radio manufacturers stole his ideas
and left him broke and facing homelessness. Lots
of good photos of his house and antennas and radios.
-Ed Cummings
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9875026/Trevor-Baylis-Ive-wound-up-broke-despite-inventions.html
Trevor Baylis: I've wound up broke despite inventions
Inventor Trevor Baylis says he faces having to
sell his house after failing to make money from
his wind up radio and is now calling for the
government to step into to protect inventors.
Trevor Baylis: I've wound up broke despite inventions
Trevor Baylis in his garden, which overlooks the Thames Photo: PAUL GROVER
By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
The London Telegraph
8:10AM GMT 17 Feb 2013
290 Comments
Ive got someone coming around in the next
couple of weeks to do a valuation on my house,
says Trevor Baylis, as he walks into the sitting
room of his home on Eel Pie Island, in Twickenham, south-west London.
Im going to have to sell it or remortgage it
Im totally broke. Im living in poverty here.
Surely not? This is the man whose wind-up radio
has sold in millions around the world, and was
recently named among the 50 greatest inventions in British history.
The story of Baylis and the clockwork radio he
developed in his garden shed in the early
Nineties should be a shining example of how
British ingenuity can lead to success.
On the walls of his house are nearly a dozen
honorary degrees he has since received, a letter
he was sent by the Prince of Wales on being
awarded an OBE, and photographs of himself with Nelson Mandela.
But as the eccentric 75-year-old inventor shows
off the compact home and chaotic workshop he
built himself nearly 40 years ago, he grows remorseful.
Despite the apparent success of his wind-up radio
and several follow-up products employing similar
technology including a torch, a mobile phone
charger and an MP3 player, Mr Baylis says he has
received almost none of the profits.
Due to the quirks of patent law, the company he
went into business with to manufacture his radios
were able to tweak his original design, which
used a spring to generate power, so that it
charged a battery instead. This caused him to lose control over the product.
He built a home on Eel Pie Island in the 1970s for £20,000
Now Mr Baylis wants the Government to protect
future generations of inventors from suffering a similar fate.
We are brilliant at inventing but appalling in
the way we treat inventors, he says. I was very
foolish. I didnt protect my product properly and
allowed other people to take my product away. It
is too easy to rip off other peoples ideas.
You have to take someone to court to stop them,
but as a lone inventor, you just cant afford to
do that. If they just change the design slightly,
then they can claim they have got around the patent.
The Government needs to stand behind the lone
inventor. There needs to be better support to
help inventors keep their designs and to help them fight against the big boys.
Mr Baylis has been lobbying for the patent system
to become more robust and to turn the theft of
intellectual property into a white-collar crime that carries a prison sentence.
Currently patent infringement is considered to be
a civil matter in the UK rather than a criminal
matter. According to Mr Baylis, other countries
such as the US and Germany provide far greater
protection and support to their engineers and inventors.
Next week Vince Cable, the Business Secretary,
will sign a new agreement to establish a
Europe-wide patent that will cover 25 countries
and is aimed at simplifying the process of protecting designs for inventors.
However, in a world of international trade, where
products are manufactured on the cheap in
countries such as China and imported, the risk of
having a design stolen or copied is even greater
due to the difficulties in bringing lawsuits and
the poorer regulation in these countries.
Even major companies like Apple have suffered
from their technology being copied by Chinese firms.
Mr Baylis insists that the Government should make
tackling this problem a priority to help bolster the UK economy.
Even when someone has a bright idea, what tends
to happen is that it goes off abroad to China to
be manufactured. Once something is being
manufactured overseas, then those ideas can be stolen.
The Government should definitely play more of a
role in stopping this from happening. They should
offer financial support, advice on developing
peoples inventions, and help to keep that
manufacturing here in the UK. It would make money for the British economy.
Over the past nine years, Mr Baylis has been
using his own money to help fund a company
designed to provide advice to inventors and
helping them take their products to market.
But faced with growing financial dire straits,
the firm is struggling. Mr Baylis himself now
survives by earning money as a motivational
after-dinner speaker, but despite clearly loving
to talk, even this source of income is now drying up.
As he bustles around his one-bedroom home, Mr
Baylis, who is single, tells a torrent of bawdy jokes and one liners.
He built the house, which features its own
mooring on the Thames and a five-metre swimming
pool in what doubles as his entrance hall, in the 1970s for just £20,000.
He had fallen in love with Eel Pie Island as a
young man due to a passion for jazz in the
1960s the island was famed as a jazz and blues
venue. There are now 120 inhabitants on the
island and a number of artists studios.
Mr Baylis shares his home with Ike, a plump
Labrador. On the walls he has a few pictures of
his lady friend, but it is clear his house
lacks a womans touch. I never throw anything
away, he says. You never know when it might be useful.
Screws, bolts, pieces of wire, cogs, circuit
boards and fuses litter the place. Even old
microwave meal trays are put to good use as
makeshift drawers for some of his odds and ends.
The garden, which overlooks the Thames, is
designed with the simple functionality of a
bachelor in mind. There are plastic flowers
sitting in pots on top of synthetic grass, the ultimate in low maintenance.
The shell of a classic car he attempted to build
in his younger days sits on one side of the
garden as a rather extravagant parasol stand.
Running around the outside of the main part of
the house is what Mr Baylis calls his studio.
It is the workshop where he continues to tinker
with ideas and build devices using an impressive
selection of band saws and lathes.
He has invented more than 250 products, including
a shoe that generates enough electricity as you
walk to charge a mobile phone, a self-weighing
briefcase, and a device that allows the disabled to open jars with one hand.
On the shelves around his workshop are dozens of
wind-up radios, torches and other clockwork devices.
He still has the original prototype of the
wind-up radio he first built back in 1991 after
watching a television programme about the spread of Aids in Africa.
By allowing people to access the air waves and
therefore information in remote areas of the
continent where there was no electricity, he
hoped it could help tackle the spread of the
disease by allowing advice about contraception to reach everyone.
An ugly black box with a large metal key in the
back, the original prototype ran for just 14
minutes before needing to be wound up again, but
over time the efficiency improved and the product became slicker.
In 1995, following an appearance on Tomorrows
World, he set up Baygen Power Industries before
the company was renamed Freeplay Energy.
It was at this point that the design began
incorporating cheap rechargeable battery
technology and his involvement ceased. Freeplay
has gone on to sell more than three million
wind-up radios, with that number growing every day.
John Hutchinson, chief technology officer at
Freeplay, said Mr Baylis had voluntarily sold his
shares in the company and that technology had
moved on, leaving his original patent outdated.
He said: Freeplay developed its own technology
and by 2000 no more clockwork radios were made.
The method was to use human power to recharge a
battery. Trevor sold his shares in the company
and the now outdated patent was incorporated into Freeplay.
Earlier this year the wind-up radio was named by
the Radio Times as one of the 50 greatest British
inventions of all time, along with the steam
engine, the television, the jet and the world wide web.
Now Mr Baylis, a former professional swimmer and
stunt performer, contents himself with soaking in
the hot tub he has built in his garden every
morning and taking Ike for long walks.
But he fears that he may have to sell his beloved
home as debts begin to mount. Other properties on
the island have sold for up to £400,000.
He has also been offered £80,000 for his
treasured Jaguar E Type, which he keeps locked
away from the elements in a garage.
I dont want people looking at me and thinking
how sad it is that I am now living in poverty,
he says. Instead he wants his situation to be a
cautionary tale. If people are not going to be
rewarded for their inventions, then why should
they invent at all. This nation was built on inventions and manufacturing.
People like James Dyson have done very well, but
not many of us have all the business skills we
need to bring a product to market.
"Students need to be taught about intellectual
property in schools and the Government needs to
have people who have themselves invented working for them.
We need to value inventors, otherwise more will end up with nothing.
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