STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 619/54

Full transcript of an interview with

TOM JACKSON

on 8 May 1998

by Rob Linn

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

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OH 619/54 TOM JACKSON

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

This transcript was donated to the State Library. It was not created by the J.D. Somerville Oral History Collection and does not necessarily conform to the Somerville Collection's policies for transcription.

Readers of this oral history transcript should bear in mind that it is a record of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The State Library is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the interview, nor for the views expressed therein. As with any historical source, these are for the reader to judge.

This transcript had not been proofread prior to donation to the State Library and has not yet been proofread since. Researchers are cautioned not to accept the spelling of proper names and unusual words and can expect to find typographical errors as well.

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TAPE 1 - SIDE A SOLA HISTORY. Interview with Tom Jackson at Pilkington, St Helens, on 8th May, 1998. Interviewer: Rob Linn. Well, Tom, could you give me a bit of your personal background, and education, please?

TJ: I was brought up in Ireland and I went to Trinity College, Dublin. I got a

Degree in chemistry in 1954, and I came across to this part of the world to

Widnes and I worked for ICI in Widnes for just about three years, starting off in

the patent department. So I'm one of these graduates who actually went

straight into patents.

After the first three years in ICI they caught up with me for the Navy. Well,

caught up with me for National Service. And instead of doing National Service,

I did three years as an instructor officer, or a schoolie, in the RN, which meant I

taught the products of the English secondary modern school system electrics

for two and a half years. (Laughter)

I came out of the Navy. I wasn't the same person. Went back to Widnes for

two years in the patent department, and then I went off to Unilever because I'd

always been interested in information work. And I got a job in Unilever where I

was the head of the patents information section because it was a big patent

department. This was (sounds like, limited) not envy.

And I worked there for seven years, and during that time I qualified as a patent

agent. Because you have to take your exams, you know, after you've done

your degree.

And then at the end of that time I'd become Secretary of the patents

department. I run the administration for the boss, and I also ran the

information section. And I suddenly realised that I was becoming a specialist.

That there was one job in the UK, and if the next boss didn't like my face, I'd

have difficulty doing anything else so I thought I'd better go back to being a

proper patent agent. (Laughter in voice)

And I saw a job advertised at Pilks. I came up here in November 1969, and I

worked for Pilks from November 1969 until - well, I retired in May 1992 but I did

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some consultancy work until November '92. And I finally finished with Pilks

then.

My association with SOLA started in, probably, May of 1978 when I went to a

meeting at St Asaph, where they were discussing a project - well, I was told I

was going down to discuss part of the expansion of the optical division, and

that they were interested in a company that made lenses. And so I did a bit of

searching before I went down because I heard the mention of Australia. So I

walked into this meeting, and I can't remember what the code name now was

for SOLA on that exercise, but there was this company and I said, 'Is this

company SOLA in Australia?' They said, 'How did you know?' I said, 'Well, I

did a search (couldn't decipher words) patents'. There's this article by a bloke

called Bob (sounds like, Soff-man), which was about all you could find out, you

know, in the literature. And they said, 'OK'.

Well, we had this meeting, and they were going out to Australia.

Was that Jim Procter and that crew?

TJ: Was Jim Procter - I'll come back to the names of them.

The important thing was, you see, they said, 'What we'd like from you, Tom, is

some questions to ask on patents'. And I said, 'Well, it's a bit like Parliament.

If you ask a question, you may want to ask a supplementary, and you won't

know how to ask the supplementary if you can't judge the answer. If patents

matter, there's no way you can do without taking me'. I wasn't particularly

keen on going to Australia. So he said, 'Right. We'd better take you'.

So the expedition that went to Australia was Jim Procter, Dave Roberts, Tony

Hartley who was head of the legal department, Ian McKittrick. I can't

remember what Ian was then. He's now a director of flat glass. David Joynson

who was in the sort of accountants area of acquisitions.

Lesley Wall? TJ: No, no, no. This is the initial team.

Oh, OK. This is the first team. TJ: This is very important.

This is long before the October work then.

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TJ: Oh, yes. This is very important. This is the June '78 visit. I wrote it down

in fact because my wife said to me - it took me all day to remember Ian

McKittrick's name.

That's right. So it's David Roberts, Jim Procter, Tony Hartley, David Joynson

and Ian McKittrick. We were the people who were going out. And the idea was

that this was a look-see visit and we would come back and make a report. And

so all arrangements were made.

We had to go and see Dennis Cail, was the Director, along with Lesley Wall.

Because either he'd become the Optical Division Chairman then or he was

designated Optical Division Chairman to take over from somebody else. I don't

know whether he took over from - (sounds like, Sol Kay) had been.

So we all got issued with our tickets. And I had to go to a history conference

on the Saturday, so I worked out a flight to Australia that got me there by going

- in those days you could go one stop Bombay, then Perth, and then Perth to

Melbourne, and Melbourne to Adelaide.

The amazing thing was we all went by different routes. Jim Procter and Dave

Roberts had a stopover in Hawaii, which I don't think was - and I think Tony

Hartley was on that stopover, which wasn't really much of a success. David

Joynson and Ian McKittrick, we never really worked out where they'd got to.

(Laughter) The thing was our planes landed within an hour of each other at

Adelaide airport, and in those days Adelaide was not the airport it is today.

They still took the luggage off in a trolley and dumped it at the side. And we all

ended up in the - the first introduction to SOLA people was the airport

manager's office. Gins and tonics at 11 o'clock in the morning. (Laughter)

And I think it was - what do you call him? Bob Jose and Noel Roscrow met us,

possibly with - Tony Donovan may have been there as well.

So we were ushered off to the Park Hotel, ensconced in there, and Dave

Roberts when you talk to him will tell you the terrible business. Because his

room was one of these rooms that had a bed that could be used as a

conference room. And one of the major jobs I did on that trip was that I was

one of the people who tidied up before he could get to bed for the night.

(Laughter) Get the cups out of the way and things like that.

And so we held the meetings there. And any visits to the SOLA plant were sort

of in the dead of night. Tony Hartley and I ended up going out one evening

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with Dean Sherry to look through the legal agreements and the patent records,

such as they were.

Mm. Such as they were. TJ: So we did that at night so that nobody saw us.

The funniest thing was, you see, there was another bloke in town - I can't

remember his name - from another optical company, and our cover story was

we were looking at a defence project in Adelaide. In fact, one of the waiters

was - one of the blokes who used to bring the tea in was very intrigued as to

what the hell we were doing. Whether he knew somebody from SOLA or not, I

don't know. But the worst thing was that two doors down there was another

hotel and there was this bloke, whose name I can't remember now. And

concealing the rest was easy but if he caught sight of Jim Procter who is - you

know, big Jim. (Laughter)

And the worst thing that happened - I shall always remember. Jim Procter

went out on a surreptitious visit to the plant with Ian McKittrick, and when he

came back I saw Dave Roberts standing - and Dave is a little bloke - 'What

were you wearing that for?' And Jim said, 'What? What do you mean?'

'Bloody Pilkington tie'. (Laughter)

I know that's not really history but it's all part of the problems of acquisitions,

you see.

I think it's a very good history, thank you. TJ: But you'd better ask Mr Roberts about that.

Anyway, the meetings - what happened in those meetings, in my view, is that

Noel and Bob started to apply pressure to us because they needed money

urgently and wanted the deal to go through, and they were doing very well at

getting over the feeling that something had to happen quickly. Our so-called

look-see visit turned it into one where we were going to report back - instead of

going back and compiling a report saying, 'SOLA looks like this, this and this', it

turned into becoming an immediate deal. You know, 'We have to get on with

this. They need the money. They're under great pressure. Their wives are

going to leave them if they continue'. You know, the whole area - the reason

we were told they came to Pilkington was they'd suddenly realised they'd

reached the stage that they were trying to run a multinational company from

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Australia without the facilities of a multinational company. And they needed

help. But they weren't going to give it away.

I always felt that we should've walked out - you see, one of my theories on

acquisition is that you should have a team that evaluates, and the senior

manager who decides that's something to go for, and they decide what's a

good price to pay. And then they get out of it and somebody else gets in

whose job it is to put the deal through. Because one of the problems you have,

and you see this as a junior, is that the people at the top get committed, and

then they reach a stage where if they don't get it, they feel it's going to be

failure in the eyes of their bosses.

And Dennis Cail was a new director up there. So he wanted an acquisition.

Surely wanted this acquisition. And so, you know, they were prepared to push

it through. And the only time that Noel Roscrow ever got really annoyed with

me was once I was out at his house - you know, at Hindmarsh Island - and I

said to him, 'Oh, we paid too much'. And he said, 'Don't you ever say that'.

(Laughter)

Because I reckon that if we'd walked out of the meeting in June and gone

away, they might've tried to sell to somebody else but I think we would've got it

for less in October than we got it for.

So you're saying, Tom, you're dealing with two different cultures? TJ: Yeah.

We had one of these typical management things that Dave Roberts suddenly

sits at the table and looks around the table, and says, 'Well, I'd like to ask

everybody their opinion'. I said, 'You don't really need mine because I'm the

most junior'. And he said, 'Oh, yes, I want yours'. And I said, 'Well', if I

walked into a second-hand bookshop and this was the book I was buying, I

wouldn't be buying it at the moment. I'd be coming back a bit later'. (Laughter

in voice) And they, 'Oh, what nonsense. You can't compare it to buying

second-hand books'. But, anyway, that was my twopennyworth at that time.

The thing about this, you see - one of the advantages of being a specialist and

being an advisor is that in the end it doesn't matter a damn to you whether the

deal goes through or not. From your personal point of view it's not going to

make that much difference(sounds like, to your looking). It made a big

difference to me in the end, in my career.

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Anyway, so we went out - and the other thing that came out of that meeting

was the famous cast to RX. You know about cast to RX?

I know - just tell me your -

TJ: Cast to RX. You see, they knew that Pilkington had this marvellous float

process which, you know, everybody wanted. See, Lesley Wall had licensed

float. Lesley Wall had devised the licensing scheme for float. Float had

produced Pilkington the lavish money to build things like this and send people

on courses and was really good cash card, in terms of royalties. There'd been

a lot of problems but one of the problems in this company was that people -

when I first came here in '69, in R & D, they would tell you, 'Oh, Sir Alister's

interested in this'. And my only answer was that I hadn't met him yet so I can't

really know anything about him. (Laughter in voice) 'Oh, this is going to be as

good as float'.

So, Noel and Bob and - what do you call him? -

David Pank?

TJ: - David Pank, I think had done their research. And so they came along,

and said, 'We've got this marvellous cast to RX process and the potential for

this is as big as the potential for float. We'll have these shops where they're

going to be able to cast the prescriptions to RX immediately, and we've got the

way of doing it with this marvellous gizmo, and we're beginning to file the

patent applications'.

Well, I'd done a search on that area. Well, not on that area really because

what I'd done was a search on anything to do with casting between lenses. So

I just got a sort of set of patents, which I went through with Ron Ewer.

Now, Ron Ewer is a typical example of how SOLA were good at getting people.

You know, a technical bloke that they'd trained up themselves who, OK,

sometimes felt out a bit of his depth. I mean, he's the one person who - I was

having a meal in San Francisco with Ron Ewer and a bloke from - that's why I

brought this. I am sixty-six. (Laughter) Jim Cox's further(?) boss -

Dick Kapash.

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TJ: Dick Kapash and Tom Balch and Dick Kapash's wife, when the final news

came through that the deal was going to go through, and Ron Ewer was the

one person who I think was bitterly disappointed. He saw him losing his

independence. He also saw himself, I think, looking over his shoulder very

much more. Because, you know, he hadn't got major qualifications. What he'd

got was his experience with SOLA and running things in SOLA.

Did you know that Ron was the one who actually discovered CR39 for them? TJ: Probably. I wouldn't be surprised.

He did. And he was the first person to actually perfect a casting technique there. In many ways, it was only through him that anything ever happened anyway. TJ: Technically.

Technically.

TJ: And then there's another guy who used to work with him. He used to

always tease me. Phil Squires?

TJ: No, no. No, no, much further down. What do you call the Dutchman?

You must have met - Not Helmut (sounds like, Hun) ?

TJ: No, no, no, no. No, I don't know whether he's still there. I've got to find

him. Is this what you want?

Yes, thank you, Tom, it is. A young man? Not Gerry Loots?

TJ: Gerry Loots. Well, Gerry Loots, when I got there, he had a sparring

partner and they were the inventors on cast to RX. I didn't spend time with him

on that visit but, you know, they were Ron Ewer's sort of henchmen. Bob

(sounds like, Soff-man) was a good chemist that they'd got as well.

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But I always remember Ron. I saw Ron, and I thought, 'You don't like this, do

you?' That's about my one major piece of contribution to this, that I can say

that I believe that Ron - I mean, he's not around now but I don't know if his

wife's still around?

Anne is still around.

TJ: I don't think he ever liked that deal. If he'd had anything to do with it, they

would've tried to stay independent.

I think he probably pushed for it very hard but got out-voted. He was less interested in the cash problems and more interested in keeping technical expertise.

TJ: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that, OK, there were things that needed

righting.

Right. So what happened after that was we found one patent which worried

me. So Tom Jackson, instead of going back to England the way he was

supposed to go, ended up flying up over to San Francisco. Two hours in San

Francisco, a flight to Washington (sounds like, Dallas) where the plane

couldn't land because one of the compasses went wrong. So we had to go off

to Philadelphia. A bus back to Dallas, and I eventually got to (sounds like, Joel

Freed's) office about half past two in an afternoon. I don't know how long I'd

been travelling. I always remember, he looked at me, and said, 'Tom, I can

see you're here but your eyes look like they're still in Australia'. (Laughter)

So we spent a bit of time looking over whether there would be infringement

problems on this particular patent, and we decided we'd be alright. And so by

the time I got back to the UK, I was able to report back that, you know, we

didn't see any patent problems with cast to RX.

So then we got on with doing some drafting work on cast to RX. And I think it

must've been the October that I went out to see the people in San Francisco to

go and see the patent agent that they'd been using - the patent attorney they'd

been using - from Petaluma for quite a while. And that was my first visit to

Petaluma.

And then - I wasn't involved in any of the major playing of those issues from

then on. You know, the company got acquired and then they ended up - I

mean, the thing that intrigued was, you see, I'd been involved in Unilever and

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seen what happened in acquisitions in Unilever. And a major thing in Unilever

was once you made an acquisition there was a sort of policeman put in, and no

contacts were allowed initially with any company that was acquired except

once this bloke had approved it because they'd found that if you didn't watch

out a new company got snowed under with everybody arriving to the pensions

department. Everybody rushed in.

While that wasn't going to happen with Pilkington, they were very slow to send

anybody out there. Jim had to go in the end. But I never understood why there

weren't a team of us sent out initially just to sit in Adelaide and monitor things. Yeah.

TJ: It was absolutely stupid but that's typical of the sort of Lesley Wall/Dennis

Cail - 'We've got it. Get on and manage it', so to speak. Whereas, you know,

they hadn't realised that if you're going to manage a thing like SOLA, with the

sort of people that were there, with Noel and Bob, they had to get in and show

their weight.

And then, of course, there was the - there was one big problem. I don't know

whether there was any truth in this but at one stage they felt that - I think Dick

Kapash was being paid more than the Chairman, or something. (Laughter)

Probably true. It's probably quite true.

TJ: Ian McKittrick, and who else? There must've been somebody else. Oh,

there was somebody else ended up in Petaluma on a technical visit. Anyway,

Ian McKittrick - was Ted Ellis there as well? I can't remember. There were two

technical people then went off on a tour. No, Jim Procter and Ian McKittrick, I

think, then went off on a tour of the various SOLA technical sites. I probably

saw the final report but I don't know where they are now.

I don't know how much SOLA stuff got left in archives here when they - is

Nancy Barker still in charge of archives?

Ian Gillies has been speaking to somebody there, Tom, and they say they can't find anything.

TJ: The one thing I was going to do this morning was to ring up - one of the

things in patents department and legal department, you tend to keep things

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forever. There may be some SOLA files that patents department haven't

destroyed.

Jim Procter was saying that he felt among his files, if they'd been kept, there should be a lot of material relating to reports on those things you're talking about.

TJ: Jim Procter's files should've been kept because divisional directors files -

now, the thing I'm going - do you want to switch off just a minute.

Archives, there probably is still some material. There may be still some

material from the patent department files. You see, I took all the actual patent

case files to Australia in 1994. So that was my last major job for SOLA was for

me to hand over the patent files because Colin Perrett decided that it was

better I went out with the files than we left a patent attorney to leaf through

them and spend time reading stuff he didn't - I was able to say, 'We don't need

to read the whole of this'. In fact, it was a very good visit because I was

originally supposed to stay a Monday and a Tuesday and I did it all in one day,

and flew out on Sunday. So they were quite - my last visit to Australia, I arrived

on a Wednesday and flew back on Sunday. They did it right around the world

because I went to San Francisco as well.

Anyhow, that's jumping the gun.

So that's the acquisition. My views on the initial running of the thing. Jim went

out. My contacts thereafter in Australia were purely on patent matters, except

that I did two visits to Japan with Noel when we were negotiating a deal on

coatings with Nippon. Those were quite interesting trips.

How did you find Noel as a person, Tom?

TJ: He's very easy to get on with. I always got on with him very well and, I

mean, I've been invited around to the house for meals and things like that. And

I spent a weekend - you know, I've spent two weekends down at Hindmarsh

Island. I've cut his grass. In fact, that's where I first met Heine. Right.

TJ: Because Heine's introduction was a weekend I was in Australia and we

were down at Hindmarsh Island, and Heine and Bob came to a barbecue there.

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Now, whether he'd started working for them then or was just about to start

working for them, I couldn't tell you. Be late '81. Somewhere around there.

TJ: One of my problems now, of course, is - at least I've got a framework - is

telling you which year things happened is difficult.

But, anyway, Heine turned up at this barbecue at Hindmarsh Island, where I

distinguished myself. During the Summer I'd had a swim in the water there.

This was - I don't know when. This must've been - I don't know when this was.

But, anyway, I ended up saying, 'Oh, yes, I quite like -' 'You don't swim in

that'. 'Of course I swim in that'. I'd forgotten that the river had dropped a bit.

So I dived in and got my head in the mud. (Laughter) But luckily I was able to

extricate myself.

Anyway, so I had quite a few visits to Australia on patent matters, talking to

people there. So I mainly used, you know, people in SIHL.

And then the next - the most major job that I did in Australia was when Ted was

there - Ted Ellis. I think that was around about March 1983. It was after the

year of the fires.

Yes, that's '83.

TJ: What happened was the - one of the important products for SOLA, and I

haven't got it with me because they're out in the car, is the - you know, the no

line bifocals.

The progressive lens.

TJ: Progressive lens. And what happened there was Eric Barkan worked with

Dick Kapash and Tom Balch. I can't remember who - they worked for

somebody who was connected with developing lenses for Polaroid.

Yes, that's right.

TJ: That was the time they first got associated with this patent attorney -

Zimmermann. You know, you get these little groups.

Dave Sklar, too.

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TJ: Yes, Dave Sklar, yeah. Well, Dave Sklar was then still lecturing at college

and Eric was an independent consultant still, and they had come up with this

idea for a progressive, which had been put on one side. They wanted to get

into progressive business but there were a lot of patents. So in the end what

happened was Ted said that the best thing is you'd better come out to Australia

and sit down with Eric and Mitchy Kris in a hotel and you can work through all

the patents. The problem about these things is that I'm not a mathematician.

I'm a mathematical idiot. An awful lot of them is maths. But there's still the

words the patent agent have to interpret, and really they're so turgid that you

have to sit down - we sat down in this hotel up in Clarendon.

The Clarendon Winery. TJ: Is it Clarendon - somewhere up there. The Old Clarendon Winery it would've been. TJ: That's right, yeah. We sat down in a room in that hotel - Which Heine had shares in.

TJ: Yeah. - for about ten days. The only problem was they never changed

the menu in the place. Apparently there was a little Dutchman - a retired Dutch

airline bloke - who had a little restaurant down at the bottom of the hill. In fact, I

taught Eric to drive on the - I took Eric out to practise driving on the wrong side

of the road on those trips. And got to know him very well. So we used to sit

down - I would read bits of the patent specification out and then he would read

and we'd try to keep each other awake. So we worked through - I don't know -

many, and we eventually came up with a report saying, you know, we think we

can go ahead and we won't be sued for infringement. If we are sued in

Australia under these AO ones they're invalid because of so and so. Produced

an opinion on that, and we reported that to the SOLA Board and they decided

to go ahead and make Eric's progressive. There were a few hiccups along the

way. And that was one major job in Australia.

Let's see. The next thing -

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Was Eric's very close to the American Optical one? I mean, I find this very hard to judge. People said, 'Well, it's a direct copy', and yet from talking to Eric - TJ: It's not a direct copy.

Talking to Eric, it was actually his and David's imagination, or mind, or whatever, they actually thought the technique through -

TJ: The thing about this in the end - I can't remember which way round it was.

Either we added and they multiplied or we multiplied and they added.

If you can think of a progressive. The way you design a progressive is what

you want to do is - sorry, this isn't a waste of time. You've probably been taken

through this by a technical person. But a progressive has a far vision zone and

a near vision zone, and they're connected by a corridor. And you have to get

all the rubbish into this area here so that your eyes don't see it. So you have to

define the surface typography of that. And the way you do that is a bit like - I

don't know if you've ever known anything about astronavigation but you have a

celestial sphere and you measure distances from a celestial sphere. Well, the

same way with a progressive lens. You have a standard sphere and you

measure distances for the surface, and then you can plot all these places on

the surface.

And Eric came up with a good lens design and, you know, we had to see could

be patent it. And that was the other aspect of it. We spent about two days

sitting in a lawyer's office in Washington as well on the patenting side of it. But

the major thing was to discover could we go ahead. Yeah. TAPE 1 - SIDE B Go on, Tom. I don't know if you want to talk about that again but at some point I'd like to ask you about Goetzenbruck but have we finished really with the story of Eric and the -

TJ: No, no. Eric went on. I mean, I think I did a wee bit of - Eric's case, we

ended up going to things like the European patent office in Munich to defend

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that patent. And Eric continued designing. I haven't talked to him for two years

now. I don't know whether he's still employed at -

Yeah. He was when I saw him. TJ: Well, Eric, you know, is a real brilliant guy.

Oh, yeah.

TJ: And he can explain - the main thing is, you see - my definition of a good

inventor is somebody that can explain things properly to me.

He certainly can.

TJ: If an inventor can't explain things properly, I don't think he's a good

inventor. Because he doesn't understand his work. And he understands his

work, and he has a gift of giving you a feel for it. Absolutely. TJ: And, you know, he then started making lots of trips to Australia. He talks the hind leg off a dog. TJ: Yeah. Well, he's like me. You can imagine the two of us together. (Laughter)

There's an idea. I'll get you together sometime.

TJ: I had a meeting with him once at - we met in Sydney airport to discuss the

latest invention because I was on my way out as they were on their way in.

David and - and then David got involved. And I saw a lot of them when I was in

the States, you see. In fact, Eric took my wife and daughter for a flight over the

bay in his plane. He's got a private plane. I refused to go. This great business

of flying up from south of San Francisco airport down near Palo Alto, and he

flew them right up over the Golden Gate Bridge and then down on to the

(couldn't decipher word) airport on the coast. A place called Princeton. And

so we had this great business - we were waiting in the restaurant (couldn't

decipher words), 'The flying party have arrived'. (Laughter)

17

Anyway, so Eric's the progressive lens business. I was involved in thinking

about patenting the various stages of it, and we prosecuted those patents over

the years. We've never asserted them against anybody.

Now, do you want anything on the contact lens business or is it been -

On XPR? Or the later - On the first contact lens that Rod Watkins and - TJ: Yes. Yes, please. XPR, they called it, I think. TJ: That's right. Yes, I'd love to know about that.

TJ: Well, you see, Rod obviously was involved in the early days when he was

still in charge of research, and he was obviously beginning to feel vulnerable,

and he'd always got this vision of a replaceable contact lens. And if we

probably could've got more work done we might've had something to go ahead

with and get a good patent on early but, you know, it was all very vague.

And then, Gerry Loots got involved in doing the work. And we had the famous

occasion when I wrote my biggest bit of science fiction when we thought we

were getting a peculiar effect - that the thing was pumping oxygen through the

lens by water diffusion. So we wrote a marvellous XPR patent on this which

turned out to be total nonsense because the measurements had deceived

them in some way. But with - what was it? There was a Vietnamese there at

that time.

(sounds like, Wan-toe) ? TJ: No, no. Fan-tan or something. Oh, yes.

TJ: And he was working for Gerry Loots. And we all thought we'd got a

marvellous contact lens here. And we did some patenting and, you know, then

it all fizzled out. I think the main thing was, you see, they couldn't get the

reproducibility. There's probably still some files on XPR.

18

I know. I've got quite a few already, Tom. I've heard quite a few but it got very close, didn't it, to being sewn up?

TJ: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing about it was that we didn't really know how

close the competition were. Now, whether SOLA could've started from scratch

- I think what we might've been able to do is - and it's very easy to say this. If

when they bought Syntex they'd pulled Syntex round from their sort of

egotistical position to looking at XPR properly, and got work going and got rid

of all the mechanical nonsense that was going - there was an awful lot of

engineers in Syntex, which had marvellous engineering equipment which was

likely to go wrong - and we hadn't bought Barnes Hind. Yeah. Well, Gerry told me that Barnes Hind just killed it, and said, 'No more'.

TJ: That's right. Well, you see, Barnes Hind - one of the problems with the

contact lens industry was we bought two bits that were diametrically opposed

to each other. Syntex were in the so-called quality end of the business, and

they looked on Barnes Hind as being in the rubbish end of the business. I

wasn't involved in them but they had these marvellous Bainy(?) type teams that

were supposed to put the two cultures together. And I don't think that ever

worked.

And Syntex had been part of a pharmaceuticals organisation, and there was

the lavish building and all the rest of it and all the trappings to go with that. And

Syntex, you see, what they'd done is they'd taken some people, and said, 'Go

away. Build up a contact lens industry and prosper'. And they'd given them

the money and the lab and all the rest of it. And then they'd got so far, and

Syntex said, 'Well, you don't seem to be prospering very well. We're going to

get rid of you'.

And they'd got all this accumulation of people. You know, with Kumah (the

Indian) sort of running the research department. Kumah (couldn't decipher

name). He always sounds like a cricketer. He's still around in the Bay area.

So that's jumping a bit but, you know, there were these two cultures and XPR

didn't fit in with either of them. And yet, you see, when we then went after the

people in Southampton, that was because they had a sort of possibility of

producing a mass produced cheap lens. Daily wear lens.

Who was that? Cooper Vision? Or Paragon?

19

TJ: Cooper Vision. Paragon's a different story.

Yeah. You were involved with that, too, weren't you, Tom? TJ: Oh, gosh! (Laughter) This is how I know your name. This is, 'your fame precedes you'.

TJ: No, no, no. You see, the thing in industry is that you have to run your

credibility factor down slowly. (Laughter) And I still had a high credibility factor

when I worked for - the thing about it is, you see, I didn't do that much on

Paragon. I was the employer's representative. I mean, Paragon was one of

the major problems, you see, when I found out - what happened on the Syntex

- is this alright?

Yes, thanks, Tom.

TJ: On the Syntex acquisition, what happened was Dave Roberts suddenly he

rang me up, and said, 'I want you in San Francisco next week'. I said, 'Well,

why?' He said, 'You've got to go and look at the patent records in a company

called Syntex. On a contact lens business'. I said, 'Well, how am I going to

get there? I don't like driving it'. He said, 'You'll have to drive it'. (Laughter)

So the first time in my life, and drive out of San Francisco airport and follow

these directions to get to Syntex's headquarters.

On the wrong side of the road.

TJ: Well, it's not so much the wrong side of the road. And now that I know

how to get out to San Francisco airport, it's not so bad. Except they've

changed it recently. But you have to get across about four lanes of traffic at

one stage.

Anyway, I was sent to Syntex to look through the patent records. And

incidentally, the most interesting thing there was that there was this New

Zealand patent agent. Oh, what's the man who fought at Crete? You know,

the General? You know the one I mean. Yeah.

20

TJ: Anyway, the famous New Zealand General. And it was his nephew. I was

introduced to this bloke, and he said, 'Oh, that's my uncle'. It's funny how

these things happen. That was a most interesting thing from my point of view.

Anyway, I arrived in Syntex, and there was this guy who was a typical

American bullshit patent attorney was in charge of the Syntex work, and he

proceeded to tell me all about this marvellous legal case he was fighting

against Paragon. Now, all the things that Pilkington always felt about getting

involved in the States was that we don't want to get involved in any litigation.

And so, I said, 'Well, what's all about this?' So I had to look through the

papers, and I spent about three days reading all the patent files(?). And I have

to admit I missed one thing. And that was the fact that they should've

amended their British patent application when they were aware of some prior

art. My only excuse is, in retrospect, I don't think it would've been clear to me

at the time. I think it should've been clear to me at the time but I missed it.

And that had problems for me later.

So we ended up in a situation where we had - because Syntex had acquired

these patents to set these guys up from the bloke whose name I can't

remember now. Anyway, what they'd done, they had been in the hard lens

business, and they saw the need for a non (couldn't decipher word) lens.

They saw the need for a gas(?) (couldn't decipher word) lens business and

they'd gone out and employed this bloke to invent it. And I've forgotten his

name now. I should remember it.

Anyway, he was employed to invent it. We'd got these so-called strong

patents. Syntex assured us we'd win this case. They also had another case -

and they were at the stage where the lawyers were beginning to hate each

other. So they referred to (sounds like, Radkowski) as the Rat and, you know,

how they'd got him cornered and all the rest of it. I just thought that Pilkington

aren't going to get involved in a litigation like this. And it was coming up to the

final stage of a hearing in the Federal Court in Phoenix.

So I went back and said that, you know, I'd looked through the patents and as

far as I could see they seemed to spend an awful lot of money. There was an

awful lot we could drop. I mean, we weren't likely to sell enough contact lenses

in Iceland and Borneo and Sarawak to merit (couldn't decipher words) patents.

They'd been doing pharmaceutical type filing. And I said, 'There's a lot of dead

weight that I can get rid of if we do have to acquire this company but they're

involved in this litigation'.

21

There was also one other bit of litigation with another guy, which in fact was the

only time I'd been to the Court of Customs and Appeals in Washington, where I

went - and he was a paranoid inventor who was costing them money just to

fight the case.

And we ended up - I always remember these very learned judges. They

actually have a that light comes on. You just have so long to argue a case.

They asked this bloke why he hadn't done something, and he said, 'I was afraid

I might be arrested'. 'Arrested in this Court?' And you could quite see they

thought he was mad. (Laughter) So we won that one. But it was another bit

of litigation that was lying around. You know, so they went ahead and bought

Syntex.

Then having bought Syntex, they decided to buy Barnes Hind. Having bought

Barnes Hind, they decided to buy Cooper Vision to fit in - you know, synergism

and all the rest of it. And, you know, that was it. So I ended up with an awful

lot of patents lying around the place.

We ended up with another bit of - well, the Paragon litigation I'll finish with.

What happened with the Paragon litigation was we went to trial in Phoenix. We

had a very good expert witness on the business of how to work out what our

damages were, and the other side's lawyer used to upset the Judge. One

advantage of being an observer is that you don't - it's mainly keeping awake.

The Court Officer, or Supervisor, used to claim that the Judge watched to see

when I fell asleep. (Laughter)

I only had to give evidence once and I distinguished myself by arriving up at the

witness box, saying, 'Oh!'. He said, 'Can you read this?' I said, 'No, I've

forgotten my spectacles'. (Laughter) I had to just give the proof - the piece

of evidence we used as the infringement - it was something I'd brought in North

Wales - prove the transmission of - in fact, their lawyer should've asked me

more questions on it but he didn't bother.

But he used to fall over his briefcase regularly.

The lawyer?

TJ: Yeah. And I used to watch the Judge because I could see the Judge was

doing the same thing as me. He was waiting to see what happened. (couldn't

decipher words) five minutes before he falls over the briefcase again.

(Laughter) This bloke was supposed to be a very good lawyer but he seemed

22

to be floundering. Now, that may have been because he was getting bad

instructions from his clients.

There was an awful lot of typical American - an awful lot of briefing of people. I

spent, I suppose, about three or four weeks living in a hotel in Phoenix with

these lawyers going out to dinner every night with them, and living the case.

And we eventually got the decision in our favour.

Now, because I reported the decision to Dave Roberts, who gets some of the

kudos but I did - you know, I was merely a sort of manager if they needed a

decision as to what the company's attitude - whether they should do so and so,

because after all lawyers have to be told in the end. Then they come along

and say that we think we ought to do it this way.

And the other person who was very much involved in that case at that time was

Mark (sounds like, Stoy-er) , because he did a lot of the financial work and he

gave a lot of the evidence on the financials. And that supported this bloke who

- the expert witness whose name I can't remember now. He came from up in

Oregon. Who was sort of an expert witness on financials, and he sort of

presented the case. And then the detail came from Mark. And then there were

two other guys gave the technical evidence.

And that ended up that - TJ: Well, it ended up -

Took over Paragon, didn't they?

TJ: Yeah, well, that was a typical one, you see, where we were going to put

them out of business, and then they decided to take them over. And then they

decided to get friendly. And so we ended up with this so-called enemy,

Radkowski(?), a bit like a quisling in the camp, running the business. And then

they put these other two guys in who apparently - I don't know, this is after I left

- turned out to be rogues as well. (Laughter in voice)

Oh, yes, I heard something about that. Yeah, that's right.

TJ: But, you know, I think the contact lens business is going to be the worst bit

for you because it has no - I think if you could find the document which sets out

why they went into the contact lens business it'd be useful. There was this

belief -

23

Does it exist? I've heard from Robin Nicolson that it basically came from a Board level. The overall brief - to diversify and acquire things.

TJ: Yes, well, you see, they decided that - Pilkington decided - see, the other

interesting thing, of course, is - I don't know whether he did anything on it but

Theo Barker was very interested in getting in to do the history of SOLA. He

wrote some letters to me when I was out at SOLA. You know, would he be

able to come out and see - I think it was more for trips. I don't know if you've

read his history. Yes, I have.

TJ: If you look in it you'll find an obscure footnote in that that TV Jackson in an

unpublished paper (couldn't decipher words) (Laughter) So I know Theo

quite well. I find the really annoying thing about both versions of the Pilkington

history - you know there's an earlier? Have you seen both? No, I haven't seen both. I knew there was an earlier. TJ: Yeah. Is that they're all about the managers. There's very little about the

workers.

Course one of the problems is that the managers sort of set the thing up.

TJ: Yeah. But, you see, I think Theo Barker's sort of type of history is about

managers rather than about people.

But you don't even get to know the managers as people.

TJ: Well, I think he did better than most at the top. Also, the thing I have

actually is an unpublished version of his history of float (Laughter in voice)

which is absolute nonsense in places where you can see - you know, they put

the (couldn't decipher words). Tom, can we revert back to something that Ewer started off, and that was the purchase of Virgo at Goetzenbruck. TJ: Yes.

24

What was your part in that exactly?

TJ: Well, we had been involved - I'd been involved in discussions with Virgo

before we bought them over an infringement issue. Oh, no. We were involved

with Virgo originally because the glass side of the business was working with

Virgo to produce a photochromic fused(?) bifocal. So we'd been involved with

Virgo in looking at patent infringement.

And then, what happened was I had to go to - it was AO sold as Virgo. And I

had to go to a meeting at London airport with Dave Roberts, and I think Jim

Procter might have been involved, where we were having discussions with AO.

And one of the major problems was how would we keep the AO progressive

information seperate.

There was an awful lot of work done on a purchase agreement because - I

don't mean a purchase agreement to purchase the company but a purchase

agreement under which AO was going to take progressives from

Goetzenbruck. In other words, they were selling us the company but they

were still going to buy product from us. And one of the problems was that we

were then going to be operating in Goetzenbruck a progressive lens operation,

while in Australia we were developing a progressive lens. And I had to go out

and look at how the records of the know-how were kept there, and what

material was there, and what the know-how might consist of. And to make sure

there were proper precautions in for us for visitors so that visitors didn't see

things. And that was a visit I did and I must have written a visit report after that.

The thing about it is that - one thing we need to do is probably, before I go, talk

to Tony Halliwell at patents department about what files might still be there.

That's about all I can remember about that. The only involvement I had with

Virgo was checking on the know-how position and seeing could we keep our

sort of Chinese wall. Yeah.

TJ: And I think I recommended we could keep a Chinese wall if people were

careful. And also that, you know, the know-how was limited to certain things.

Tom, leaving that behind for a minute and coming up to the - we were talking about the contact lens side before. What's been your on-going involvement with SOLA from that point?

25

TJ: Well, what happened was that because we'd got so much litigation going

with the contact lens business - because we ended up getting - we got some

litigation going with Barnes Hind where we were sued for - oh, what was the

damn lens called? Anyway, we were sued for something and we ended up -

we had a rotten lawyer in Barnes Hind at that moment who - I wanted to use

people in Washington for this, and he said, 'You haven't got to pick the

lawyers'. So he picked the lawyers.

And we went down to a hearing in San Diego where the Judge had obviously

not read the patent specification. His clerk had given him something to say and

he gave an immediate injunction, which we hadn't expected. (couldn't decipher

words) conditions and we ended up in discovery. Discovery means you have

to go through file after file. It's hell!

So I ended up spending quite a lot of time in the States. And there was a

problem in Australia or Japan at that time. So I was ending up - for a while I

seemed to spend - my wife said that I did a long haul flight every weekend but

it wasn't quite as bad as that. It seemed like that. And I started coughing and

spluttering. They decided my health was suffering.

So it was suggested, 'Why don't you come and live in the States?' And so that

was in August of 1990, we moved to the States.

Now, my boss at that time, Mike Lee, didn't want me to go. So in this famous

meeting with Sir Robin when Mike explained why he wanted to keep me here,

and Sir Robin looks at me and says, 'Do you want to go, Tom?' I said, 'Yes'.

He said, 'Well, you can go'. (Laughter) It was absolutely ridiculous. The

man should've said, 'No, you're not going'.

I wanted to go because my boss had changed. I'd spent - what? 1990, it was

twenty years working here. I was hoping to retire when I was sixty, which was

1992. I really didn't feel like another two years in this place. I was quite

welcome to get out of it. But if I'd been a younger man I wouldn't have gone

because it was quite clear to me that there probably wasn't going to be enough

work.

And so I got this marvellous title of Director of Strategic Technology.

(Laughter)

That is a lovely title.

TJ: Haven't been able to use it in a CV.

26

Anyway, what happened was, I used to drive around through there every

morning and park around the back there. And my boss used to be sitting there

and he always used to be looking at a piece of paper. And I used to get out the

car and look up and see this bloke sitting - I said, 'I can't go another two years

coming in and wondering what that piece of paper is he's reading every

morning'. And he's a very nice guy but it's one of these silly things that irritate

you. So despite my misgivings, and much to my wife's delight, we proceeded

off to -

To your wife's delight?

TJ: Oh, yes. She was very keen. She enjoyed it. I mean, she would've

stayed longer actually. I mean, she could get on a - we had a very nice house

rented for us. She could get on her bike in the morning, cycle up to the - we

lived at a place called Los Altos, which is south of Palo Alto. We had a nice

little bungalow. We were allowed to bring our dogs and cat.

And I arrived in the office. But we were in the middle of one of those reviews,

when Head Office was looking into things, and there were management plans

being reorganised. And I was supposed to go around finding out what know-

how was around, and nobody had much time to tell me what to do. And if I

went up to Petaluma and talked to anybody that didn't know, I felt they thought

I was a mole from Head Office. (Laughter)

(tape restarted) So you retired from Pilkington in May '92, Tom. TJ: Yeah. After coming back from the States.

TJ: And then I was on consultancy for SOLA until April - I think the contract

expired in April '95. And then about - what is it? A year ago last November, a

bloke rang up I'd never met, and he said, 'You won't know me. I've got a job

we'd like you to do. We're having a meeting, and somebody said that if Tom

Jackson was still around it would be a good thing for them to do'.

So they called me back in on the licensing of UTMC in Portugal. And I said

that I didn't want to start consultancy again because I don't want to get into tax

hassles of self-employed. So I said, 'You can pay me a weekly retainer', which

27

they do. And I've done one other job in connection with UTMC in

Czechoslovakia. In fact, last week, for the first time for three - and I mean I did

some work on looking up the competition regulations under the sea for them.

And last week - or was it the week before? No, it was the week before that

Ireland actually rang up on a problem they've got on buying a machine from

Leybold and wanted an immediate comment on some documents. So it came

in at half past one and they got back it back at half past three, which I think was

good. So it got rid of my conscience of being paid to do nothing for three

months. I've not heard another word. I might have been a bit caustic in it.

That's the problem of being old and rusty. I said there's a recipe for disaster

here and that may not have gone down well. Better to be honest.

TJ: So that's the way - I've got one other job at the moment actually. I work for

the University of Wales at Bangor because they've got a bar(?) composites(?)

department. And Dave Roberts rang me up one day, and he said, 'I think what

these people need is an in-house patent agent'. And so I do odd jobs for them

on patents and that keeps me busy.