4 Velox: Innovation without Patents

As late as 1915–1916, patents were rarely brought up in discussions about knowledge transfer between academia and industry in the United States. During these years, the New York Section of the American Chemical Society organized a series of meetings to promote the “necessity of cooperation between the universities and the industries.” The 13 presenters of papers mainly consisted of representatives of Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but also included two chemical industrialists, an industrial research chemist, and a member of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. Almost all of them shared the organizers' premise that more collaboration was desirable, so the discussion mostly focused on the advantages and disadvantages of various strategies for bringing it about. Still, only two speakers, Elon H. Hooker of the Hooker Electrochemical Company and William Walker of MIT, referred to patents. Moreover, Walker, an experienced consultant and designer of a chemical engineering curriculum oriented toward basic industrial processes and problems, did this only to question their relevance.
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