[Harp-L] Re: Will Scarlett

["jazmaan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for refreshing my memory Winslow!  I'm a big fan of Will Scarlett's and I didn't mean to
imply any denigration of his marvelous contribution(s) to the harmonica.  

And by the way, I really enjoyed listening to "Windemere"!  Was that you singing?
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 21:43:13 -0000
From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fwd:  [Harp-L] Will Scarlett.
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <ch845h+tj8s@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jazmaan@xxxx" <dmf273@xxxx> 
wrote:
Will Scarlett "designed the enabler reed principle?"  I'd like to 
hear more about this!  Is this
another example of several people independently coming up with the 
same scientific discovery
around the same time?

=====

No it is not.

This has been discussed at length many times in the last 10 years on 
harp-l; I thought you as a long-time denizen would have remembered, 
David.

Will Scarlett designed the principle and built a 3-reed prototype 
about 20 years ago, and carefully recorded it in a patent journal. He 
showed the patent journal to Rick Epping, who witnessed it with his 
signature - I have seen the journal and Rick's signature with my own 
eyes. Rick decided to run with the idea and came back to Will with 
news of what he was able to line up for developing the idea into a 
product, but Will did not want to collaborate, as he wanted to 
develop his own idea by himself. Rick went ahead anyway and used the 
idea as the core of his design. Will never took out a patent. He told 
me that he filed an interference after Rick filed his patent but did 
not prevail.

There were other people who did independently come with the enabler 
reed principle, but long after Will did. Richard Sleigh came up with 
a version the details of which I do not know. Brendan Power came up 
with essentially the same idea as Will and got Suzuki to built a 3-
reed system into a proototype 10-hole harp that was only slightly 
larger than a standard diatonic. I have seen and played this 
instrument; it works quite nicely. When Brendan read about Rick's 
patent he and Suzuki dropped further work.

The ironic things is that as far as I understand it, nobody owns a 
registered patent on the enabler-reed idea. Rick's patent correctly 
cites it as prior art and addressed only the designs that Rick came 
with in order to successfully implement the principle, which has a 
few problems that have to be solved in order to embody it in a multi-
celled chordal instrument.

Winslow