History of Birmingham Inventors

Birmingham Inventors.

Who Thought of That?

If like me you've worked in a hi-tech building and had to pass security guards and press several key-pads in order to reach your office, and, if on returning from lunch you've found a gentle stranger sitting by your desk, waiting for you, you've probably just met an inventor. I worked in Birmingham and, in the early 1980s, I became involved in finding cash for smaller businesses: it wasn't long before a steady stream of inventors and innovators cottoned on to this but, with very few exceptions, it wasn't just money they really needed. They needed protection from sharks, some cash to keep them going and expertise in a number of areas of which they knew very little - marketing, selling and, where necessary, manufacturing. There aren't too many 'James Dysons', about, but there are people about with really clever ideas although lacking the expertise necessary to turn them into viable products. At the time, advice about protecting intellectual property was all that was available; surprising, you might think, for the “City of a thousand Trades”. I was also amazed.

Since childhood, I'd been fascinated by the concept of the Lunar Society and it was the first organisation I wanted to turn to, but it had lain dormant since 1813! It was founded by Erasmus Darwin (Charles's grandfather) in 1766 and brought together men of prominence in a number of fields, to resolve problems. So with strong support from Aston Science Park and the patronage of the late, innovative Earl of Aylesbury, I formed (and ran for its first ten years) what is now known as, “Birmingham Inventors”. This little organisation wasn't designed to attract an eclectic group of brain-boxes, but to nurture individual inventors by giving them the chance to swap information in an environment of confidentiality. With voluntary help from accountants, a lawyer and a patent agent, they could be protected from sharks.

I understand that very few people are capable of coming up with totally new ideas, say five percent of the population. A further ten percent empathize with them, but the remaining eighty-five percent are the enemy – the denigrators, the kill-joys.

Most of the inventors who came forward were retired engineers who'd cradled a brain child for years. They'd waited to be free of rapacious employers, but younger people joined as well, including a few women. The latter assured me that cave women invented the wheel while turning clay pots - but not, I suggested, the steering wheel (only joking).

It is not widely understood that although it is technically possible to protect intellectual property with patents etc., it is another matter when a small business tries to fight off a large predator who has copied/stolen their ideas (being a matter for the civil rather than criminal courts). I have seen this happen at first hand: an entrepreneur failing when an ex-employee set up to sell identical products at a deep discount, but the cost of taking him to court was prohibitive and the time lag disastrous. Also, I have witnessed a multi-national organization try to scare off an inventor with threats of costly litigation to prevent him from developing a product which rivalled their own. They backed off at the last minute. It's tough out there and inventors need powerful allies.

With the concept of matching inventors with honest business people, and securing a fair arrangement between them, it was only a matter of weeks before it was possible to introduce one of my innovative engineering clients, who had spare space and engineering capacity, to an inventor with a product which fitted those facilities exactly. The design was simple but ingenious and the product was selling very soon thereafter. Practicing accountants are the ideal go-between for the introduction of new ideas to established manufacturers/factors etc., since they not only know who can be relied on not to cheat, but because they are professionally bound by confidentiality, and the inventor can trust them. Another inventor approached me in the early days (just before Birmingham Inventors was formed) with a pharmaceutical product which was proven in the laboratory but seemingly impossible to produce on an industrial scale – the solution was an engineering problem rather than a pharmaceutical one. Again, one of our imaginative, engineering clients was introduced and the product was on its way. However, as with all medical applications, proving, licensing and marketing meant it was not on the shelves for ten years – but it’s still there, twenty-five years later.

Over the years, dozens of successful projects have benefited from Birmingham Inventors, including some very hi-tech inventions, such as using electro/chemical means for the rapid identification of bacteria, a device to record minute traces of atomic radiation, and currently, state of the art LED applications and a revolutionary method of planting seed (for farmers).

In all modesty, any practicing accountant who is interested in helping inventors can do it, as can anyone else with practical experience gained in, or with access to, compatible businesses. Birmingham Inventors is still a vibrant organization carrying on the good work, and celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary last summer (2009). This proves to me that although there are big guns out there, dedicated to the promotion of new businesses, inventions and innovation, there remains a place for small, local organizations to nurture and to bring individual inventors face to face with one another, where they can exchange experiences. Above all, and with so many sharks around ready to gobble up other peoples' ideas, introductions to decent partners are paramount.

Birmingham was once the “City of a Thousand Trades”, now it has enormous problems with unemployment, obesity and teenage pregnancies. What went wrong? Whatever it was, there is a lot being done to remedy things at the moment, not least by Advantage West Midlands, a government sponsored development agency and many other smaller organizations, such as the Lunar Society (resurrected in 1990), and I have no doubt that the traditions of invention and innovation which were the lifeblood of the Midlands' manufacturing success, will soon re-emerge in a different form and lead the region back into prosperity, always provided the denigrators can be kept at bay.

John Newton The Birmingham Inventors 2010

[John Newton was an accountant with one of the big accountancy firms and founded Birmingham Inventors along with Roger Vernon of Shakespeares Solicitors and Derek Harris, at that time financial controller of the then recently started Aston Science Park.]