[Stoves] Re:RE: genealogy of stoves

[Boll, Martin Dr.]

Dear Tom
Crispin,
And Jigme Rangdrol,

Possibly the word genealogy was not precisely that, I thought of.
-English is only my third language, and a lot of time ago, I learned it at
school. So there is a possibility of not being precisely. I am happy the
auto-correction avoids a lot of mistakes-
My idea was mainly to get a line how the different types of stoves changed
with time and different use. To know, where and from whom this was
made/changed is interesting, because for some further ideas; the "fathers"
could possibly be asked about that stove.
What I did not think of, was a general history of stoves. There will be
others to do, or certainly have done.

Patents, I think, are not intended of most of the list-members. I think
there are some afraid, their postings are used to make a patent and so cut
off the original thinker from his original ideas.
I hope, your answer is right, and nobody puts "before his nose" some patent
of things he had initiated/invented.

Best Regards

Martin
  

> Today's Topics:
> 
>    2. RE: genealogy of stoves (Crispin Pemberton-Pigott)
>    8. RE: genealogy of stoves (Jigme Rangdrol)
> 
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:23:49 +0200
> From: "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <crispin at newdawn.sz>
> Subject: [Stoves] RE: genealogy of stoves
> To: "Stoves" <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
> Message-ID: <016701c68be8$2e25f1b0$79413f45 at Averatec>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Dear Martin
> 
> Thanks for the stimulation.
> 
> I am not sure if the genealogy is possible - perhaps for certain stoves it
> could be done.
> 
> But...about the patents.  Patents are over-rated.  A patent is a licence
> to
> sue someone for infringing on the patent.  If you invent something really
> good, people steal it left right and center.  How much of your time are
> you
> willing to spend in court?
> 
> These days there are many patents applied for and issued that are not
> valid.
> In fact, unless an American court has ruled in favour of a patent's
> validity, people do not generally consider an American patent to be valid.
> To get one 'broken' all you have to do is find that some guy in China made
> an essentially similar device in 1922.  It happens all the time.  I hear
> it
> costs about $1.8 million to have a patent ruled valid in the USA.
> 
> And then look at the guy in Arizona who first put two video machines in
> the
> same case.  Japan went nutz!  It is so obvious but no one had done it.
> They
> hounded and persecuted that man and his little company because they were
> going to have to pay him some fee to make them.  Even now, they are not
> generally available on the market.  If you make something good, they will
> try to bankrupt you and have to sell it to them cheap.
> 
> The patenting of 'life forms' by which I mean parts of the genome of
> people
> is stupid. They are all invalid as you can only patent something you have
> invented, not something found in all living people.  Duh!  What a waste of
> money.
> 
> Thus the fears about someone patenting 'your genome' are unfounded and
> mostly serve to scare people into doing something silly, possibly costing
> money.
> 
> A lot of stove patents are invalid but no one has challenged them yet.
> For
> example a stove might be patented in Mauritius and never tested in court.
> Therefore it is 'valid'.  But that patent might not have made it through
> the
> Canadian system which checks more carefully.
> 
> And even after all that, a patent might be legal in 4 countries but no
> others where it is perfectly legal to knock off the idea with nothing due
> to
> the real inventor. And after 20 years or so the patent becomes public
> anyway.
> 
> It is a jungle out there, and in here!  The best thing to do is to carry
> on
> doing good work and share what you can with people who also do good work.
> The rest, for the most part, is noise.
> 
> Regards from
> Crispin
> 

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 06:32:40 -0700
> From: Jigme Rangdrol <rangdrol at turboisp.com>
> Subject: [Stoves] RE: genealogy of stoves
> To: Stove List <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
> Message-ID: <448AC9F8.5030601 at turboisp.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Greetings Dr Martin Boll and stoves list.
> This sounds like an interesting project for several people and lifetimes!
> 
> I have truly enjoyed the works of James Burke and a biographic recording
> of stove history would no doubt be a riot of characters.
> It seems too much for an accurate recording of any real use.
> Evolution of technology is sufficiently interesting to negate the need
> for biographic recording.
> There is no real need to worry about attributions at all.
> There are, as people have been saying, some problems with claims and
> patents and all that.
> These boil down to Theology for the most part and can be eliminated as
> such with little difficulty.
> A simple statement of facts can avoid all the theological entanglements
> in most cases.
> For example people claim to know who invented the Elbow or "Rocket
> Stove" and there would be endless debate if you allow the theological
> positions.
> If you remove them and stick to just the facts it could be stated that
> "the elbow stove was used by the Romans in England to heat public baths
> and re-emerged in the computer age" etc etc. This avoids all the
> theological and ego problems - they are after all intricate to each
> other - and thus 99.9% of the debate and strife with no diminishment of
> the quality or usefulness of the recording.
> These other issues derive from the same sources and can be cleared away
> by using the proper definition system of a single source. For example
> the Oxford Dictionary. Thus the word "Discover" would mean "To see for
> the first time." and not as is common in colloquial English "To be the
> first to see" etc etc etc. The attribution of invention and indeed the
> words "Invent" and "Discover" would be almost completely unrequired as
> so very very little of the technology of stoves is in fact new and the
> real inventors and discoverers are unnameable.
> In the works where these methods have been employed there is room for
> singular and personalized attributions if need be but in an area as old
> as stoves there is little need.
> 
> A most interesting collection would be images of stoves in a chronologic
> order. Since we now have the digital power to excersie it would be an
> appropriate collective computer recording.
>