> Unfortunately Texas Instruments has a patent on drawing 3-D
> images on a spinning helix. I was royally pissed to discover
> this in the late eighties because I'd prototyped it years earlier

That is such a PITA. This past week I've been helping a person
Russell MacMahon put on to me. One of my suggestions to him
was to go to IBM's patent database and look around. And there
it was - his idea, a done deal by someone else. Comprehensively
sewn up too. It's a position I've been in many times, not a great
start to the day but there is a finality, if an unpalatable one

On the subject of companies with resources, there's a TV
series on at the moment called Better By Design. Two men
look at existing products and see what they can do to
improve them. Something most of us do from time to time.
With infuriating ease when they want something made, like
a component or model, they just throw money at it. I'm sure
hauling along a TV crew is no impediment to them getting
what they want either. For example they had the Lotus
engineers make them shopping trolley wheels for god's sake.
Lotus engineers ? I try to imagine what that costs

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