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The hidden technology
Simone Maccagnan
Sales Manager / Researcher
In approximately 25 years, Gimac, the enterprise started by Giorgio
Maccagnan and Marina Scremin has been able to transversally revolutionise
sectors like Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices. Moreover, it has become the
4th largest contributor in terms of
intellectual property in the Province of Varese, which is a 20th century cradle of aerospace, motorcycle and
chemical technologies.
Gimac produces machinery and turn-key systems to obtain tubes,
filaments and membranes from unstable, expensive or self-synthesized materials
in the form of blends of polymers, drugs, nanoparticles or ceramic
powders.
Thanks to Gimac’s technology, microinvasive surgery, tissue
engineering and drug eluting implantable devices can be “equipped
with” complex and very small components for critical applications.
Just as, when pointing the moon, you attract the attention mainly to
your finger, the real technology is “hidden” behind its
results.
Imagine that we need to bring a camera, a scalpel, a water jet, the
air for inflating a balloon and an electrode, in short a whole
“micro-surgery” room, through a blood vessel that is a few
millimeters wide.
We all know that nowadays this is possible, but how?
This is generally unknown, paradoxically what makes the impossible
possible stays behind the curtains.
If somebody shows us a tube smaller than a toothpick, we perceive it
as high technology, but is it really the technology?
That which we normally find on the surgeon’s trolley, aside
from the surgeon himself, has been “simply” condensed in a very
small tube - a catheter.
This may be new, but is it also an invention? What if I said the
catheter is something irrational made possible by advanced technology?
So… where is the technology? Or it may be better to ask: What
is the technique? In general, I would say that it is what allows the
transformation of a raw material or a product into another one.
And what is the technology? In the above-mentioned case, part of the
technology that makes possible the miniaturisation is called
“microextrusion”, but we can define the technology as a
derivative of a simple thought: “let’s pretend for a second not
to think that our problem cannot be solved, and on the basis of the techniques
we know (all the techniques, including the fancier and unrelated ones)
let’s try to find a solution for it”.
This was Einstein’s attitude when he uttered a beautiful
sentence that every entrepreneur, researcher, politician, every farmer or
dreamer should have in mind or on the wall of a restroom. Einstein said:
“something is considered impossible until somebody that does not know
about it arrives and invents it”.
The invention… what is an invention? An invention is a
distraction, and forgetfulness is in fact a way of inventing. It’s
simple, you say to your brain, “This is the problem for which you need
to find a solution.” Then, when you find one, you write it down, you
dismiss it, and again you tell your brain, “now choose different
techniques, different physical laws, forget about the previous approach, and
think about a totally different solution, a new one”, a new mental
process, an invention, a patent?
Is the patent interesting for the inventor? Clearly, the inventor is
interested in continuing to invent in order to demonstrate the value of his
invention and to use the resources from it.
Certainly the patent is interesting for the registrant, and even
more for the one who will use it.
The patent is clearly interesting for the demanding, modern and
merciless sponsors and, since I am an entrepreneur, it is interesting for
me.
An entrepreneur is his own sponsor - this is Gimac’s concept
- to be your own sponsor, to look for stimuli, follow them, support them,
invent, change paths, reinvent or invent something new, and decide whether to
patent it.
Follow the new complexity, face it, solve problems, come up with new
ideas and wait for somebody to need what you have created. But until this
moment, patenting does not make much sense, unless there is a fear that
somebody else might “re-invent” and patent the invention first,
thus “forbidding” the inventor to use and develop his own idea.
This is a dilemma, a kind of “blackmail”… You can apply
for a patent immediately, thus publicly revealing your idea, which you
don’t consider mature enough to propose to the market or, because of the
way the legal system works, you may loose the right to follow up on your idea.
Reveal? Patent? Progress feeds itself with the sons of inventors
(the inventions) for the good of the economy, and that is why it desires more
inventions. It compels inventors to give away their newborn babies, much as in
ancient Sparta children were taken from their mums to be transformed into brave
warriors. Unfortunately this is civilisation and the law on IP of today.
However, there is another way to approach the violent and predatory
universe of inventions. This alternative is especially effective for young
entrepreneurs.
For a young entrepreneur, it is important to understand the basics
of the bureaucracy around IP, but it is even more important to find a good
administrator, together with whom it will be possible to manage the commercial
results of the invention. Trying to personally administrate the commercial
results of one’s own ideas will make the act of inventing more and more
difficult since it will be more and more difficult to admit that there may be
alternatives to your invention. So if the invention goes its “own
way” - let it be!
No one should ever stop inventing out of a fear of losing ownership,
or he will loose the gift, the ability to invent.
It is necessary to remember that there will always be a newer,
better solution. But the important thing is to invent it first, preferably not
before the market needs it, but as soon as the administrator feels that the
right moment has arrived.
But we should never try to keep all inventions to ourselves. We
should choose some of them, choose a delegate to exploit them, but never try to
manage them all by yourself or you will become their slave.
www.gimac.com
simone@gimac.com
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