Secrecy in government rightly arouses suspicion, especially when the whiff of an election hangs heavy in the air. More obvious is the British government's intention to win extra votes by buttering up the electorate before this spring's nationwide poll with cuts in taxation on budget day, 10 March. One time-honoured source of money for the Conservative government is privatisation and one is imminent. But this is no ordinary privatisation. It involves the sale of Britain's only truly independent technology transfer organisation, the British Technology Group.
Whoever buys the BTG will be buying nothing but brainpower, patents and licences. These patents and licences cover a multitude of technologies and inventions, from pesticides and antibiotics to lavatories and grain harvesters. Most of the group's 8800 patents originated in Britain's academic community and research councils.
Over the years, BTG has won the trust of the country's inventors, so they were justifiably alarmed when ...
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