(Image: Paul McDevitt)
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Star in a jar
FOLLOWING discussion of patent piracy in the sex toy start-up world (29 August), Michael Berkson is reminded that the UK patent office is well stocked with incendiary ideas. “I suggest patent GB 970091, ‘Transmutation of Elements’, which claims the synthesis of helium and the simultaneous generation of energy by mixing aluminium powder, solid sodium hydroxide and water in a steel pressure vessel,” he writes.
Incredibly, this patent was granted to Noel Ignatius Rafferty in 1964. “To use a…
