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Universities also do a great amount of fundamental research. For
example, the University of Wisconsin holds a patent on a method of
increasing the vitamin D content of foods. Patent royalties help support
university laboratories and many industries also give money to

universities for research purposes. Commercial laboratories, on the other
hand, do research for other companies on a fee basis.
The principal funder of invention in the United States is the federal

government. The majority of the federal money spent for research and
development and hence, presumably, for discoveries and inventions has
gone to the aircraft and missiles industry and to the electrical equipment
and communications industry. This distribution of funds has been

criticized by some for creating an imbalance in inventive activity and for
being directed toward practical applications rather than basic
knowledge.

The United States is not unique in its emphasis on research and
development and in the large-scale support accorded science and
technology. Throughout the world, discovery and invention have

become major tools for achieving national objectives. In Japan priority
is given to technical education, and scientists and engineers are granted
preferential treatment.

Likewise Great Britain has increased its support of scientific and
technological inventions. In the 1960s many Britons complained of a
brain-drain as British scientists and engineers were lured to other
countries. As a result, Great Britain set about strengthening its higher

educational system in science and technology in order to regain the
premier scientific and technological position it enjoyed during the 19th
century. Even in the so-called underdeveloped nations there is an

attempt to promote inventions and discoveries, or at least to adapt those
of the developed Western nations to their own needs.

Inventive Processes

The way for a new invention is prepared by all the previous related

inventions and discoveries. James Watt, for example, could devise a
rotary steam engine only because there was a long series of inventions
before it, including the crank, gear, wheel, lathe, thermometer, strong

cast iron, knowledge of heat, evaporation, and condensation, and a
method of measuring the heat energy in steam.

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