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“Patents give you the right to sue. They don’t give you the money to sue. It just costs too much.”

Colin Murdoch died a few weeks ago.

He invented the plastic disposable hypodermic syringe, the tranquilliser gun, a silent burglar alarm and a childproof bottle top.

Needless to say, he made bugger-all money out of them.

His philosophy was that if his inventions were benefiting humans and animals, it would be wrong to sue those who violated his patents.

Late in his life, he said

“It is impossible to comprehend the catastrophic consequences of this situation if such practices (the re-use of improperly sterilised syringes) were still occurring today… Instead of now having to care for, and contain, the several million infected people throughout the world who have Aids, the numbers could well be 30 or 40 per cent of the entire population.”

Just let that sink in for a sec.

His obituary in the Telegraph is here.