The Ukraine war may generate numerous unintended, or unanticipated consequences for world trade, manufacturing and the phenomena of building better mousetraps. For example;
There are several avenues to travel on the design and construction of building better mousetraps for consumers. Each avenue is a fork- or a tri-forka, to a door leading to a virgin avenues of mousetrap innovation that I will summarize briefly.
Door number one is the conventional spring loaded trap that crushes the skull of a mouse or at ;least flattens the body. The main problem with those efficient killing machines is the difficulty in keeping them sensitive enough to slaughter lightweight ice taking the bait without setting off the slam of death, yet not so sensitive that they are difficult to set without getting one’s fingers caught in the trap while setting it. One should have some sort of pin locking mechanism that could hold the spring loaded bar in place while setting the trap down, that could then be withdrawn without setting off the trap.
Behind door number two are the mousetraps cranked safely into ready position like catapults that disengage from the bar of death when it locks into place. Consider the way a rocket launch support gantry is detached when the rocket launches form a launchpad for comparison.
Door number three has new age mousitarian catch and release traps that are too clever for a mouse to find its way from after tracking cheese to its source in the center of the trap. It is a trap for vegetarians that catch and release mice safely without bloodshed far away in a placid countryside where it can meditate with flowers, bees and reptiles in blissful harmony. Mousitarian traps are made of clear plexiglass and easily disassemble to let a mouse escape its normal solitary isolation cell when the compassionate trapper determines the time izes right.
The Ukraine war may drive up the cost of trapping mice or getting a Chinese patent on mousetraps for Americans that can’t afford U.S. patents because of the growing division of the world in to two basic economic camps. Because Americans generally manufacture things in China, China too may put barriers to Americans getting cheap Chinese patents that should be exclusive for five years only yet pay ten percent royalties after that, instead of the U.S. patent system of five applications for $3000 dollars with exclusivity for life for the patent holder (incidentally slowing economic productivity and pace of invention synthetic build-ups).
If someone invents a submersible crab pot with positive buoyancy that will float to the surface when a wind up timer releases compressed air blowing the water ballast that sank it, or improves the design with electric motors that can charge batteries on the sea floor with a water propeller generator and steer the crab pot to a boat with a homing signal, the inventor will probably want to earn some cash rather than have someone else able to afford patents take it when the concept leaks out.
As the new normal world economic order reorganizes itself into dual camps seeking to add trading partners among the unaligned it is worth remembering that if someone invents a way to transform hundreds of thousands of acres of lunar regolith into moderately efficient solar voltaic surfaces instantly (or very quickly at low cost) there should be a way for a very low cost and simply effective patent process to exist so the concept isn’t lost to wealthy corporate elites or repressive foreign union leaders. The green cheese of the moon may not actually fall to the Earth thus feeding us all (ref Arthur Hoppe)in spite of the invisible hand of capitalism.
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