55. The inventor of hospital bed lights

2 clear cupped goggles covered his 2 bandaged eyes as he walked to the Head Nurse's station. The man was in his late fifties, of medium height, broad shoulders and receding hairline and was dressed in blue uniform.

The inventor of hospital bed lights had finally made an appointment for me to see the hospital bed lights he had invented and installed in a private hospital. I had known him for over 20 years as he provided veterinary anaesthetic machines for my surgery. He had a workshop at one time and then he disappeared for some years overseas and running an Indonesian restaurant.

Now, he was back in Singapore again and back to his love of making and maintaining medical equipment. A biomedical-engineer type of person, a profession rather rare in Singapore.

What's the big deal in inventing and designing a hospital bed light? I had to see the real thing as his photographs did not impress me. In any case, there is nothing like seeing the real invention. So, he made this appointment for me to see it.

The hospital bed light must be safe for the patient and must be easy to maintain. It has an upper reflection light, a reading light and a night light all in one tube. He had worked closely with the hospital for the past years and finally his invention was approved.

The hospital seemed to be full house. However, he arranged for me to view one light. The man with the space-age eye googles left his bed for a minute for me to see the operation of the light.

"There is a wired remote control too," the inventor's assistant pressed a console and the lights went off. Some gadget similar to the nurse-call light.

"Why not invent a wireless remote control?" I asked the inventor.

"No," he said. "The electrical intereference may affect patients with heart pacemakers."

The lights looked plain but it was what the customer wanted. His manufacturer took his designs to other countries to market and not pay him some royalties. It is the dog-eat-dog world. There was not much he could do.



I said, "From what I read in some business entrepreneur magazines, it is best to let different manufacturers from different countries do certain parts. You then assemble the whole lot."

Manufacturers and/or their staff have no qualms about stealing the designs and making money for themselves. This makes the inventor unwilling to do more research. Setting up his own factory could be an answer but that still would not solve his problem of intellectual property theft.

I asked one intellectual property lawyer who happened to take his dog to me for microchipping. A lawyer will charge a trademark registration cost around S$1,000 but a patent cost at least $10,000 in Singapore. It is just too expensive for a small inventor of hospital bed lights to patent one's invention!