Rolls-Royce and the Rateau Patents

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by Harry Pearson. Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, £2.50.

This is a much more humble R-R offering, which forms number one in the new and very welcome Technical Series of the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust’s publications.

It tells in very readable fashion of the case R-R brought against the French Rateau Company, about air intakes for jet engines. The Rateau Patents case was of vital importance to Rolls-Royce. This little book explains how they won it, with the full specifications of the patents involved. I rate it fascinating reading and it makes me wonder whether one day someone will come along and help me to get the idea of a book on The Motor-Car in Court into print!

The legal profession as well as aircraft engineers should find Pearson’s book of immense interest. It is based on a lecture given by him to the R-RHT in Derby — by a modest engineer who is entitled to the letters MA. FIMechE, FRAeS, and MBIM after his name and who joined R-R in 1940, becoming Assistant Group Technical Director in 1971. The book is available from the Trust at PO Box 31, Derby. WB