Welcome to the Glass Age

169 11. Education! Education! Education! A na C andida M. R odrigues and J ohn P arker History Early glass makers guarded their know-how with considerable enthusiasm. Allegedly an early Roman recipe for making gold ruby glass was lost for many centuries because of the failure of an overcautious father on his deathbed to pass on the secrets to his son as he had in life intended to do. Inevitably history has a habit of repeating itself. Figure 11.1 is a ruby glass vase which was the basis of a similar but much later issue! Conversely there are reports of one of the Caesars executing a subject who had discovered how to thermally toughen glass, a process perceived as having the potential to render worthless all of the glassware in the palace treasury. Of course, over time the approach to intellectual property became more civilized but still had the aim of keeping it in the family. For example, in the 13 th century, glass making was moved from Venice to the Island of Murano partly to prevent fire in the big city but also to confine all glassmakers’ families in the island, thus avoiding the spread of secrets of glass fabrication. A less confrontational approach was to offer a worthy foreman the hand of a daughter in marriage. In a local 18 th century factory this created its own problems. On the death of the factory owner his wife received the estate and would allow no further factory development. She even added to her own will a codicil preventing her son-in-law from starting a new factory within 10 miles of the one she owned. A new factory, giving the foreman his own opportunity for product development, was finally built 10.3 miles away.