And I thought I'd come up with something new...

For several years I've been meaning to build an air motor which could
also be used as a supercharger, that uses a rolling cylinder within a
larger cylinder, with a single static sprung or pivoted vane that
retracts into the outer casing; kind of a vane motor in reverse. I
reckoned the rolling design along with the lack of air churning you'd
get in a Rootes blower would make it pretty efficient and as it only
had rotary and sliding or pivoting parts, so easy to balance and easy
to make, too.

I did try Googling the design but never found an equivalent, until
now. As usual, someone's already got there: I've just found out it's
called a Di Pietro motor. The only slight difference is the the Di
Pietro has six vanes, not one, but apart from that it's pretty much
identical.

Oh well, back to the drawing board....

 

Nothing new under the Sun, as they say.
I'm astounded by the sheer amount of engine innovation that was carried
out by Ricardo, et al, in the 20s. Many of the designs that remained on
the drawing board only needed some better metallurgy to make them more
reliable. The amount of stuff Ricardo actually got into production was
remarkable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Ricardo

Still, nobody's invented my machine gun yet, but I'd not be surprised if
it happens.

 

I've come across quite a few of my ideas invented later elsewhere -
laziness, eh ?

 

Lack of funds to carry out research and patent the fucker everywhere.
I'm damn sure if it took it to a large company it'd be stolen.

 

A patent's only worth the finances you have to defend it with in court

 

Exactly.
My only hope with it would be that a large company took it on and paid
me royalties, but I wouldn't trust them not to redesign it so it's
"their's now".

 

That happened to a pal of mine who invented (if that's the right word) the
snooker cue extension seen everywhere nowadays. He was in production (small
numbers) and they sold as quickly as he could get them out the door, but he
took the idea (and a few samples) to a large snooker equipment company to
see if they'd back him. They subsequently decided they could make them look
a little more "professional" and that, as they say, was that.