LangeYuriy

“It’s hard to believe how wonderful it is to do without the inventions of 2500!”

the phrase is belonged to a German journalist and writer Kurt Tucholsky

How many inventors are there in the world? Nobody knows. The history of inventions is full of situations when they were made by accident — they tried to invent one thing but invented another. Or they didn’t plan to invent anything at all, but suddenly it happened. Inventions were made by those people who were engaged in science and those who could barely read. Revolutionary ideas were born in the minds of the adults and even children. Any time, anyone with interest and imagination, can invent something incredibly useful or incredibly funny.

But how many patents have been issued in the world is more or less known. The first patent, according to historians, was received in Florence in 1421 by sculptor Filippo Brunelleschi on a rotary crane designed by him. Since then, patents have been issued in many countries, but each has its own rules. Having received a patent in one country, the inventor could not be sure that the idea of ​​his invention would not be stolen and a patent would not be received for it in another. It is even known that some inventors refused to participate in the International Exhibition of Inventions in Vienna in 1873, fearing that their ideas would be stolen and used commercially in other countries. As a result, on May 20, 1883, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property was adopted.Then it was signed by 11 countries. Later, in 1967, the World Intellectual Property Organization was established, which is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations that provides protection of intellectual property worldwide. Today193 countries are its members.

Then, in 1883, 48 098 patents were issued during the year. In 2010 — 909 000. In 2019, 3.2 million applications for inventions were submitted. Not all of them have become patents, but about half of the applications have been confirmed.

There seemed to be many inventors. Too many. That’s why almost in every country there is an association or federation or at least a club of inventors.

One of such associations was founded by Yuriy Lange in 1925. He was an inventor and developed a water meter of his own design, flexible glued plywood, artificial leather and much more, for which he received some patents. But the most important thing he did was to unite the inventors. To exchange ideas, protect rights, build relationships with manufacturers.

For the beginning, Lange created a circle of inventors in Kyiv in 1912, then organized the same one in 1918 in Poltava. And on March 29, 1925 in the Kharkiv Palace of Labor he held the first general meeting of the founders of the All-Ukrainian Association of Inventors. It was difficult: to achieve the goal, he had to convince a large number of people of their importance. But he did it.

Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Donbas, and Ekaterinoslav regions (from 1802 to 1926 the city of Dnipro was called Katerynoslav) were defined as the invention centers. Branches of the association were established at the Mykolayiv, Kyiv, Yevpatoria, Donetsk (then the city was called Stalino), Odessa and Zaporizhia plants. Just on these plants because many inventions were born there in the process of work, but workers did not always know how to get a patent and that it in general could be got. So the Association undertook to protect the rights of inventors and negotiate the use of inventions during production. They even have been monitoring whether companies used foreign equipment, etc., when there are domestic counterparts and offered them alternative solutions. The association also published collections of inventions and the magazine “For Invention”.

Unfortunately, not much is known about the activities of the Association. Lange only managed to create it and died before the first issue of the magazine. But it was published from 1928 to 1937. It is worth thinking that his activities benefited the innovators of that time.