our inventors haven't got it made

ever since James Watt harnessed the power of steam, the British have been renowned for innovative thinking. Over half the world's successful inventions since the Second World War have come from Britain, and 20,000 new ideas for agriculture or industry were registered here last year - one in five of which came from individual inventors.

Yet, judging by the experience of British inventors today, if Watt had been born in the 20th century rather than the 18th, he would either have seen his steam engine being produced by a leading company, with no credit or money to his name, or he would have been forced to sell abroad - perhaps resulting in the Industrial Revolution beginning in America, where many UK- patented products are eventually sold and manufactured.

Inventing is a tricky and expensive business. The disclosure rule means that before patenting your idea, you cannot discuss it with anyone who does not have a legal obligation to keep it confidential. It must be "revolutionary, rather than evolutionary" (ie, not just an improvement on an existing invention). A patent costs pounds 285, but you may need several, and professional patent advice costs between pounds 1,500 and pounds 5,000.

And after spending time, money and effort refining and patenting your idea, you will be lucky to get anything back. Paul Ambridge, chairman of the Institute of Patentees and Inventors, warns: "The success rate of getting a patent on to the market is around 2 per cent. Forget the holiday in the Bahamas - it's more likely to turn out to be a wet weekend in Blackpool."

Undeterred, Britain's inventors continue to churn out an abundance of ideas. But they are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their treatment at the hands of British industry and the Government, as a steady stream of home-grown inventors are forced to license and manufacture abroad.

According to the Patent Office, Britain's share of the global technology transfer market - a measure of the resulting sellable products from patented ideas - is only 5 per cent. This market is worth pounds 200bn to pounds 300bn a year. So, taking our percentage of good inventions since the war (55 per cent compared to 25 per cent in the US, and 5 per cent in Japan), we could be losing as much as pounds l65bn a year. And that isbefore calculating any potential earnings from manufacturing.

Part of the problem, says Paul Ambridge, lies squarely with the introspective culture of British industry. "Companies don't look outside their own factory gates for ideas," he says. "In America, or Japan, they employ people to look further afield.

"British industry is also more reluctant to think in the long term," he says. "If an American company shows reduced production but boasts new product development, then its share price would stabilise - or go up. Here, a company's share price would fall."

But, even if you get your foot in the door of Big Business Inc, you can still be ripped off. David Wardell, of Inventors World magazine, says: "We try to warn people that companies will use all the legal systems to their advantage." He points out that company directors and inventors often don't speak the same language. "Inventors are not business people and why should they be? But for the lack of good advice, how many really good earth-shattering ideas end up being lost?"

"The solution," he reckons, "is a place that inventors can go for impartial advice." Fed up with "umpteen government reports identifying the problem, and then being ignored", he currently has a proposal with the Millennium Commission, for a pounds 28m innovation centre, to do just that.

JOSHUA SILVER: REVOLUTIONARY SPECTACLES

A FELLOW and Tutor in Experimental Physics at New College, Oxford, Joshua Silver, has invented, among other things, a special pair of spectacles that has the potential of giving better vision to a billion people desperately in need of it.

But like many creative people, he is not used to dealing with the business world.

Despite his efforts to get his spectacles on to the market, so far he has had no luck. "I don't have the range of skills required to make it work," he says. "There's no one else working on this project, and I don't have the time needed to devote to it."

He has already had his fingers burnt in the field of commerce, after becoming embroiled in a dispute with a British company. According to his lawyer, David Cooper: "Josh entered into a weird, complicated agreement, the upshot of which is that the company pulled out, within its legal rights."

Joshua produced a model for a variable-focus lens more than 10 years ago for a friend. "At first I thought it wasn't possible," says Josh, "but within hours I had managed to make one in the college laboratory."

His second prototype, which he made for just pounds 200 months later, consists of two water-filled plastic lenses, each containing layers of polyester membranes, sitting in a metal frame. The amount of water inside the lens determines the pressure on the membranes, which stretch or contract, thus controlling its strength. So, using a 5ml syringe to add or subtract fluid, the lens can be finely tuned to any prescription, from +4 to -4 diopters.

Despite its large dimensions - reminiscent of Elton John's spectacles - and the fact that two 5ml syringes stick out at right angles from each lens, its potential slowly dawned on him.

"According to the World Health Organisation, the vision of one-fifth of the world's population could be improved if spectacles like these could be produced cheaply, say, for less than a dollar," says Joshua. It's not beyond the bounds of possibilty, he believes. "Just think: in areas where there are no opticians, one pair will suit anyone - whether long or short- sighted."

He has already spent more than pounds 300,000 developing his variable-focus lens, but aims to continue: "My uppermost concern is to get the technology out there, and get it used."

He may be lucky - after appearing earlier this year on the BBC's Eureka programme, he has been approached by a number of companies about the commercial possibilities.

NEIL SUMMERS: THE `ULTIMATE BACKSTRETCHER'

WINNER of the 1995 Invention of the Year Award - Neil Summers' Ultimate Backstretcher - eases back pain, and encourages good posture.

lt wasn't before time. Neil, 32, had been developing his idea for more than eight years, and was about to give up. "Just five days before the award, I was in despair, flicking through the papers, looking for a bar job."

He's now a happy man. His backstretcher went on to win a gold award at the Inventions Exposition in the US, and he's been inundated with requests ever since.

However, he's less than happy with the lack of support in Britain. Having worked in Japan, he knew that his idea was ideal for the Japanese market, so he asked the British Embassy in Japan to fax him a couple of pages from the equivalent of the Yellow Pages. He was told that it would cost him pounds 360. "That might be nothing to Rolls- Royce, but it was a lot of money to me," says Neil.

"In contrast, Jetro, (the Japanese DTI) took all my publications, translated them into Japanese, flew me over there, put me up in five-star hotels, and now we've got a deal with Japanese distributors," says Neil. "But it's underneath the umbrella of the Japanese government, not the British."

Neil's backstretcher idea germinated in 1987, when he was medically discharged from the Royal Marines with chronic arthritis. He was determined to find a cure.

The first prototype looked like a milking-stool, which he simply arched his back over, but "the Eureka moment" came later. "On the umpteenth prototype, the pain in my back suddenly disappeared," Neil says. While the principle of his backstretcher is not revolutionary, the product is. Made of wood, it has little nodules which rest on either side of the spine to apply pressure to the muscles, and a channel in the middle so that no pressure is applied to the spine itself.

His award - worth pounds 10,000 - will go towards the pounds 80,000 debt he has incurred.

GWYNNE LYONS: THE `CAR DAZZLECLOTH'

FIFTEEN years ago, Gwynne Lyons had a problem. When strapped into the child's seat in the back of the car, her baby son Tom was unable to avoid the sun beating down on his head. He would cry incessantly on long car journeys. So Gwynne came up with a remedy: a rectangle of nylon netting, which she stuck to the windows with small suckers. The screen filtered out the sun, while allowing Gwynne a clear view - and a quieter journey. The "Car Dazzlecloth" was born.

It had the potential of a perfect invention - original, simple, effective, and marketable. "To me, it was indispensable," said Gwynne. "In the summer, I used it nearly every time I was in the car."

She tested the idea on her friends who had babies but, although people agreed it was a good idea, their response was lukewarm. "People said that they might buy it if they were taking the kids abroad - I wasn't sure that there would be a huge market."

Nevertheless, she went about trying to patent and sell the idea. After a preliminary search, which revealed that a patent on a similar device did not exist, she sent off her application for a patent. "I did think, `Great, I've got something here,' " says Gwynne. "But I wanted a big company to say - `Brilliant idea - here's pounds 20,000'."

It didn't happen. She wrote to Boots and Mothercare, and set up meetings. "The guy from Boots was jolly nice about it - he suggested that I produce them myself, and advertise in the newspapers, to test the market," she explained. Mothercare wanted information about potential sales and product costs. "I regret not doing that now - it wouldn't have been that difficult, but you know, being a `harassed' mother and all that - I didn't think I had the time."

It turned out that Gwynne's Car Dazzlecloth idea would have been highly marketable. Such shops as Halfords, John Lewis and Boots are now selling similar products called "Car Screens" or "Car Roller Screens", with a slight difference in that the screens roll up like blinds, for around a fiver.

But, after her initial efforts, Gwynne never did get around to completing her patent application, leaving her with no rights over her idea. Boots declined to disclose its sales figures for the car screens but, according to a spokesperson, they sell "very well".