Engineers are natural innovators, whether they are involved in the basic development of a completely new system, or in making an existing system work better. Engineers and scientists1 are frequently willing to share their skills and ideas with others. Unfortunately, they sometimes find that others are less than willing to give appropriate credit or share the profits that can be made from these skills and ideas. Having one’s idea stolen is an unhappy situation, but not an infrequent one. This is where the law comes in, like it or not – and many engineers do not like the concept of legal controls on ideas at all. But.
