WARTIME NEEDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 194, 18 July 1941, Page 4

WARTIME NEEDS

INVENTORS BUSY.

MEET SPECIAL NEEDS. (Special.) WELLINGTON, July 18. New- Zealand inventors have applied themselves actively to meet special needs arising from' war-time jiroblems, and the head of the Patent Office comments in his annual report that the old saying that necessity is the mother of invention is exemplified in the stimulative effect produced in one of the many branches of inventive activity as the result of rationing of fuel for motor-vehicles. A number of inventors turned their attention to alternatives to petrol. I'he average number of patents under this heading had been just over seven per annum, but during 1940 the total rose to the high figure of GO, and. according to the report, the prospects are that inventors will continue to be busy on this work.

Milking machines nave provided a rich field for the New Zealand inventor, who has not been deterred by the war. The Registrar of Patents points out that he has previously drawn attention to the reputation which certain Kew Zealand inventions have acquired overseas, and to the pronounced effect that such inventions have had on the economic and social development of the country. His remarks had been prompted by the activity regarding milking machines, in which New Zealand has so often given the world a lead. This marked activity has been maintained with 59 more patents on the subject. There were 83 similar patents in the previous year. Explosives, firearms, etc., constitute another group of inventions m which there has"been an unusual degree of activity. Those patents in 19:W were three times the previous year's total, and now they are five times the pre-war number. Extraordinary activity had been shown in radio inventions, but the patent figures arc now falling, for they were 578 in the peak year of 1938 and were down last year to 223. though even now this group is the largest in the patent classification, the next largest being illuminating, excluding gas manufacture.