I have long held the belief that if you give your best formulation to a competent refractories

technologist he will be able to use his own technology to improve on it.  The refractories industry in

South Africa is a small incestuous industry.  Technologists pass from one company to another picking

up technology all the way and ultimately all the players benefit from this.  Licensing technologies is

always a tricky business because the licensee will ultimately find improvements to the technology

and not want to pay the license fee anymore because the material is now different.  The way that I

have circumvented this problem is to make the royalty payment on a diminishing basis over time. 

This way the licensee never gets tired of paying the royalty.

There was an interesting court case long ago where an employee of one refractories company stole

the technology from his ex employer.  I acted as technical manager for the first company and was

therefore in a good position to give evidence.  Both parties approached me to give evidence.  I said

that I was perfectly willing to give evidence, however I would only tell the truth.  Neither party

wanted me to tell the truth.  The court proved that the technology had been stolen but the court

completely ignored the question of whose technology it was.  

If somebody hijacks a car from another hijacker, is the second hijacker guilty of a crime?

The evolution of the technology is as follows:  Lafarge patented "low cement technology" a long

time ago.   Vereeniging Refractories bought a license to produce it.  Some of the employees split

away and formed their own company, Hi-Tech Refractories.  I think the patent had expired by this

time but certainly the technology was stolen.  Vereeniging Refractories did not lay a charge against

High-tech Refractories at the time.  Clint Green left Hi-Tech Refractories to start his own company

SQR Refractories.  The court case revolved mainly around a particular product Supercast 17R which

was the best selling product of Hi-tech Refractories.

If I was asked to give evidence in the court, I would have started by showing three formulations and

claiming that I had stolen this technology.  The problem was that I don't know who the original

technology belonged to.  It could have been Vereeniging Refractories, Hi-Tech refractories, or Jan

Raath.  To determine the ownership of the technology, Vereeniging Refractories would have to

produce the original formulation on which Supercast 17R was based.  In my opinion the essence of

Supercast 17R was the presence of 1% of Secar 51 cement.  I have always believed that this

technology was invented by Jan Raath.  The crucial question is; did he invent it while he was working

for Vereeniging Refractories or did he invent it subsequently while working for Hi-Tech Refractories? 

I know that Vereeniging Refractories registered some patents based on technology developed by Jan

Raath while he was working there.  My Pipe Mix formulation included the 1% of Secar 51.  From

whom did I steal this technology?  Without the formulation of Vereeniging Refractories original

product I can't determine who I stole the technology from.  Now Clint Green's formulation does not

contain the 1% Secar 51.  It was therefore my contention that Clint Green did not steal the

technology.

I advised Clint Green and his lawyer that it was quite obvious that SQR Refractories had stolen the

technology from Hi-Tech refractories.  The only way for SQR to win the case would be to prove but

the technology belonged to Vereeniging Refractories and never to Hi-Tech refractories, and in any

case the essence of Supercast 17R was not copied.  Clint Green and his lawyer did not take my

advice and lost the case.

To further complicate the issue, I developed a substantial improvement on Supercast 17R while

working for them.  (Jan Raath died, leaving Hi-Tech without a refractories technologist.)   The only

remaining partner, Max Zantow, rejected my improvement.  He said “ I didn’t want an improvement,

I told you I wanted the same but cheaper.”   When Thermopower Furnaces invented the concept of

“Direct Resistance Heating” they needed an impenetrable lining.   They needed porcelain like

refractory.  I recognised this as an opportunity to use my new material, with superb insulation

behind it in a rotary kiln.  I called the new material “Pipe Mix.”  It worked in the laboratory prototype

and Thermopower produced some very large scale DRH furnaces.

I designed a similar lining for a similar furnace for Highveld Steel. I quoted R110 000. They rejected

my quote in favour of a quote for R2 000. It lasted for only 15 minutes, so they scrapped the whole

project.