Willard Boyle, the Nobel prize and patentable subject matter
Receipt of a Nobel prize for some portion of your life’s work and most likely passion is an undeniably large accomplishment. It is probably the pinnacle of recognition for your contribution to the body intellect. It is of course also a source of national pride for the country from which the recipient was born. This is no different for Willard Boyle and Canada. One of our own was recognized for his contribution in the field of physics and more particularly in the field of charge coupled devices or CCDs. The research being conducted at AT&T Bell Labs, which is those days was regarded for its fundamental physics research.
In its coverage of this news the CBC provided commentary into the relevance of the Nobel Prize today. During the course of a segment on the radio it was submitted that the Nobel prize is still quite relevant as it recognizes fundamental work that is not simply associated with patentable material. It was certainly implied that anything patentable is somehow of lesser value. This is simply not true as fundamental research and patentable subject matter both have their place and value.
The fundamental discoveries for which a Nobel prize is given might explore a basic physical concept or relationship. Invention then builds on top of these discoveries, developing systems and methods that are applications or derivatives of the basic understanding. It is this layer of inventing, lying on top of fundamental discoveries, that develops the building blocks for products from which the public draws benefit and pleasure. Patents have been a part of this second stage for some 500 years. At their heart they are a bargain between the inventor and the state whereby the inventor discloses the invention for the benefit of further invention and the state grants a limited monopoly.
Digging back into the records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, one finds that Willard Boyle had numerous patents issued to him during his tenure at AT&T Bell Labs. Of these United States Patent 3,792,322, entitled “Buried Channel Charge Coupled Devices” and 3,796,927, entitled “Three Dimensional Charge Coupled Devices” appear to directly stem from the recognized CCD research. The former appears directed to a problems associated with surface states and mentions an example where the charge is generated by photon absorption. The latter is directed to shift registers and other logic circuits that might be built from CCDs. Therefore, as is often the case there are a number of possible applications of the fundamental research being explored around the time , with patents generally being associated with the developments of working structures and solutions to problems encountered in application of the initial discovery.