Sometimes an item in the Swedish Press leads to a lot of letters and phone calls from readers. One such item was the interview with Sweden's foremost living inventor Håkan Lans (April 2005). And the issues that were brought up did not have anything to do with Lans’s inventions, but with his legal battles in the United States. There was evidently a set up to rob this Swede of one of his major inventions, and despite a brave fight put up by Håkan Lans and his supporters in Sweden, it appears that the perpetrators are getting away with it.

Håkan Lans is the inventor of both the computer mouse and the computer color graphics as well as the GP&C position system that, in the future, will make air, maritime and all other methods of travel securer, because unlike GPS, it does not only show you your position, it also shows you the position of everybody else in your vicinity, hence making radar redundant.

Håkan Lans’s troubles started when he was contacted by some US lawyers offering to help protect his GP&C system from any infringement. Lans was not interested but the persistent lawyers then offered to help him with his Colour Graphic system, against 33 percent of the takings. In short order they collected $20 million from Japanese companies that were using Lans’s invention without paying a license.

In 1997 the lawyers proceeded to sue eleven US computer companies for the same thing, but they sued in Håkan Lans's company name rather than in his own name. The cases were subsequently thrown out on this technicality and Lans was ordered to not only pay the court costs of the infringing companies, but also the fees of his own incompetent attorneys - an estimated sum of SEK 100 million!

"The sum total of the attorney fees has so far not been specified, but it was big and widely exceeded Lans's pecuniary paying ability. In a settlement proposal for the payment issue - from the defendants - the patent for the position indication system was therefore, although implicitly, suggested as payment! Lans was urged by his own lawyer to accept this proposal," writes a Swedish legal expert in an essay where he discusses three hypotheses about the judgement.

"The first one is that the judgement was correct and in due order - that justice has been done. The second is that the judgement was a result of a lack of attorney skill, a shortfall in the process. The third hypothesis is that the judgement was a planned miscarriage of justice. The conclusion of the reasoning is that the miscarriage of justice hypothesis is much more likely than the other ones."

All of the infringing computer companies have now withdrawn their claims for compensation, except Dell and Gateway, but Lans's own US lawyers are still demanding between SEK 10 to 20 million. He has sued them, but in October the Federal Court rejected his appeal of the court case that went so terribly wrong (just a week after the hearing rather than the three months that is the norm in similar cases, almost like it was a foregone conclusion). Interestingly, none of the North American media took up the case or even seemed to mind.

Every computer has Håkan Lans's patented colour graphic system, but now manufacturers will get away without paying a license. Even worse, the legal process has delayed the worldwide implementation of the GP&C system (to the delight of the radar industry) that could prevent collisions resulting in a loss of life, and allow for a much safer and denser air traffic.

February issue

Sweden had nothing close to a white Christmas, and the Baltic icebreakers were hanging around idle. Then came the devastating January storms that had already played havoc in the rest of Europe where people now are bracing themselves for another summer heat wave like the one that killed thousands in Britain and France a couple of summers ago.

The Nordic countries, in the meantime, are worrying about a new ice age.

The North American west coast was hit by a bad mixture of cold and wind that took out 3 000 trees in Vancouver's Stanley Park, and punctured the gigantic inflated roof of the B.C. Place Stadium, to the measured glee of eastern Canada that was enjoying balmy golf weather While the rising temperatures on the West Coast have been welcomed by the burgeoning wine industry in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia, in California, a rise of another 4ûC in temperature will, according to some experts, mean the end of wine production in Napa Valley.

Even the continent of Africa experienced unheard of rain and flash floods that wiped out bridges and roads, while, in an ironic twist, not adding anything to the diminishing water flow in the Niger or the Nile or the ever-lowering water table.

The only good thing to come out of this havoc is that Òclimate changeÓ has now become front page news. There are, however, still many politicians and certain media that seem to be in denial and any connection to global warming seems to be taboo in many circles. You have to wonder why. As early as in 2005 various academies of science in 11 countries, including the U.S., in a joint statement declared that "the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action".

Just like the tobacco companies "manufactured uncertainty" for years about the link between smoking and cancer, the oil lobby is successfully holding off any regulations by maintaining that global warming is unproven. Witness President BushÕs statement that "restrictions on greenhouse gases will destroy the U.S. economy".

With whacky weather now on our door-step, one can only hope that statements like these are seen for what they are and that this year brings a more sober look at what we are doing to our planet.

Have a nice February!

Anders


PS. Swedish Press has helped start a campaign for a Canadian stamp honouring Raoul Wallenberg at a recent Raoul Wallenberg Day in Vancouver. The Swedish diplomat saved as many as 100,000 people condemned to certain death by the Nazis during World War II. Raoul Wallenberg disappeared on January 17, 1945, in Hungary and was subsequently imprisoned in the Soviet Union. An honorary citizen of Canada, USA and Israel, he would have celebrated his 95th birthday this year. Sweden, Israel, USA and many other countries already have stamps in his honour, so now it is CanadaÕs turn. You too can help by writing to the Stamp Advisory Committee of Canada Post Corporation, 2701 Riverside Drive, Suite NO420, Ottawa ON K1A 0B1 asking for a Wallenberg stamp!