Aside from the need to earn a living, I think there are many motives among inventors and discoverers — that varies from culture to culture and the system of episteme they follow — to patent their inventions or discoveries using a part of their names. Eric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, wrote in his famous essay, titled Why I Write, throwing light on the topic saying ‘sheer egoism’ is one of the reasons to be recognised and talked about.
A Jacquard loom is used to simplify the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns. It was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801. Melvil Dewey in 1876 created a proprietary library classification system patented as the Dewey Decimal Classification or Dewey Decimal System. The system is used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries. William Mills, a hand grenade designer from Sunderland, patented, developed and manufactured the “Mills bomb” at the Mills Munition Factory in Birmingham, England, in 1915. Mills bomb is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades.
Even in sports, there have been many concepts and inventions patented on the name of inventors. Dilscoop is a stroke where a batsman goes on one knee and hits a good length or slightly short of length ball straight over the wicket keeper’s head usually to the boundary or over it. Displayed at the world stage by Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan during the ICC World Twenty20 in June 2009 and named after him.
Being a Pakistani, I am proud enough to say that our sportsmen have also contributed many things patentable. Saqlain Mushtaq invented doosra in cricket and Saeed Ajmal invented teesra or jalebi. Now terms doosra and teesra are used all over the world in cricket. In this regard, I want to invite attention of the Pakistan Cricket Board to pay attention toward things invented by any Pakistani cricketer, it should be named after him or her as there are chances to name a delivery as ‘chotah’ expectantly invented by a bowler from Pakistan in days to come. The terms doosra and teesra could have been patented as ‘Saqlain’ and ‘Saeed’ or the names of their places of birth.
JAWED AHMED KHURSHEED
Karachi
