Chemical & Engineering
NEWS FEBRUARY 5, 1968
The Chemical World This Week Foreign scientists urge U.S. end classified work on campuses In a statement to be released this week, more than 400 French and Japanese scientists urge U.S. university scientists to end military and secret research in American universities. Accompanying this plea is also a condemnation of American involvement in Vietnam, stating that some American universities "are working directly for the war in Vietnam." Citing the scientist's "ethical and professional responsibilities," the statement contends that "scientists cannot allow their universities, the most important centers in the world for scientific research, to serve as experimental laboratories for military purposes." French and Japanese scientists supporting the statement include men and women from many disciplines, including chemistry, physics, mathematics, and medicine. Besides many faculty members of the University of Paris, the list includes Albert Kastler, Nobel Prize winner in physics. Also lending their names in support of the statement are many prominent Japanese scientists, including Shanichiro Tomonaga (Nobel Prize winner in physics), Hideki Yukawa (also a Nobel Prize winner in physics), Fujio Egami (vice president of the Science Council of Japan and professor of biochemistry at the University of Tokyo), Toshizo Chitani (dean of science at Josei University), and Yoichi Fukushima (agricultural vice chairman of the Science Council of Japan). The idea of restricting classified research in American universities has been gaining momentum in this country for the past few years. Several universities, including Harvard, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, and New York University, have adopted policies against performing classified research on their campuses. Recently, the University of Michigan faculty's committee on research policies recommended that, although classified research should continue there, it should be subjected to some specific limitations (C&EN, Jan. 29, page 13). Organizer of the single-page statement from French and Japanese sup-
Prof. Laurent Schwartz Antiwar, too
porters is Laurent Schwartz, professor of mathematics at the University of Paris, and president of the Comite Nationale Vietnam, an active anti-Vietnam war group in France. Prof. Schwartz says he became concerned with classified research in American universities about a year ago. He began to see articles in American newspapers about universities doing Pentagon-supported research, some of it secret, and that some universities were moving to do away with this research. Last November he began to collect signatures of scientists supporting his idea, hoping that eventual publication of their plea might prompt more university scientists in America to oppose doing classified (especially chemicalbiological warfare) work. It would, hopefully, Prof. Schwartz says, "point out to our [American] colleagues what is going on and that we strongly oppose this chemical-biological warfare work in universities." Signatures in Japan were obtained as a result of a Japanese translation of Prof. Schwartz's statement and appeal for supporters that appeared in a widely read science journal called Kagaku. The statement to American scientists, while urging an end to military
and secret research in universities on the basis of ethical and professional responsibilities, is very clear on its stand on the Vietnam issue. "We know that many of you are actively opposed to the war in Vietnam and we fully support your energetic and courageous actions, for scholars throughout the world condemn the American war in Vietnam." The statement also threatens that if the plea is not heeded, "The continuation of military activities in American universities would inevitably lead to the determination of an ever-growing number of world scientists and universities to interrupt their relations with certain American universities engaged in military research, and this would be the ruin in international scientific exchanges which are the main source of scientific progress for us all." Prof. Schwartz says that no followup program is planned at this time. He and his supporters will wait to see what happens as a result of their statement.
ACS offers alternative that may break patent reform logjam An alternative which might break the logjam over the Administration's controversial patent reform legislation was proposed last week by Dr. Robert Cairns, President of the American Chemical Society. Dr. Cairns told the Senate patent subcommittee that while patents should be issued to the first person to file an application—the central concept in the Administration bill S. 1042 that contrasts markedly with the present time-honored system of awarding a patent to the first to invent—provision should be made for another applicant for the same patent to contest the issue of priority after publication of the invention. Each applicant would be limited to an effective date of invention of not more than one year prior to his effective filing date for the patent. Dr. Cairns, who was accompanied by Dr. Pauline Newman, chairman of the ACS Committee on Patent Matters and Related Legislation, said ACS "would accept only with great reluctance" the first to file feature of the FEB. 5, 1968 C&EN 19
ACS President Cairns With great reluctance
patent reform embodied in the Administration bill. "Due to the nature of the American chemical industry," Dr. Cairns said, "there will be a race to the Patent Office to file the preliminary applications provided for in S. 1042." This will create many new problems for chemists, will result in the hasty filing of incompletely conceived disclosures, and goes too far in penalizing a diligent prior inventor who, because of the complexity of his invention, requires time to define it properly before filing an application. The ACS modification to the firstto-file proposal, Dr. Cairns told the committee, will result in patent applications being filed earlier than they are now, but will correct inequities in patent ownership and deficiencies in patent disclosures. The Administration has already backed the ACS compromise as "a reasonable modification" if a modification is needed (C&EN, Jan. 29, page 17). Another section of S. 1042 to come under ACS fire is one that would require applications to be published before the Patent Office may have found that they contain patentable subject matter. Dr. Cairns says that publication should be delayed until some patentable matter has been found because: • It often takes several years to establish a clear technical definition of many complex chemical inventions to complete patent disclosures and determine proper claims. • The proliferation of chemical literature which may be redundant or trivial can only dilute the value of that which is worthwhile. • Publication of material, later found to be unpatentable, would rein20 C&EN FEB. 5, 1968
force a tendency to conceal inventions as trade secrets. ACS, therefore, recommends that publication occur only after the finding of allowable subject matter. ACS takes no position on the controversial question of the patentability of inventions involving computer programs. S. 1042 declares such material to be unpatentable. However, Dr. Cairns points out, the definition of computer programs in the bill needs to be clarified. As it stands, it appears to prohibit patents on any chemical process ordinarily carried out with automated equipment. ACS supports a section of S. 2597, a bill generally supported by the American Bar Association, which would make importation of a product produced in a foreign country by a process patented in the U.S. an infringement of the U.S. patent. However, ACS strongly opposes one section of this bill that would deny the right of chemists, who are qualified but are not admitted to the bar, to represent inventors in preparing and prosecuting patent applications. Today's technology requires that people with strong backgrounds in chemistry or other disciplines be allowed to help inventors, Dr. Cairns said.
coworkers Dr. B. C. Clark, Jr., Dr. Jean-Claude Farine, Donald D. Denson, and Clyde E. Bishop first prepare either the di- or triperoxide of any of various cyclic ketones. These ketones include cyclopentanone, cyclohexanone, cycloheptanone, cyclododecanone, and others. The Georgia group forms the dimeric or trimeric peroxide by reacting the cyclic ketone with a 34% hydrogen peroxide solution at room temperature. As long as the peroxide precursors can be prepared, with or without substituted groups on the ketone ring, almost any macrocyclic compound can be synthesized, Dr. Story says. They then irradiate or heat the peroxide precursors to form directly a mixture of a cyclic hydrocarbon and a lactone. In addition, the reaction regenerates ketone starting material. Photolysis involves irradiating a 4% solution of the peroxide in methanol or benzene with a 450-watt lamp for about three hours. Thermolysis involves heating the peroxide in an evacuated, sealed ampoule at 150° C. for about 30 minutes or, alternatively, running it through a continuous gas chromatograph in a variety of columns at 180° C. In some cases, photolysis gives the best reaction yields; in other cases, thermolysis does. As an example, the
General synthesis prepares macrocyclic compounds easily "Preparing any of these macrocyclic compounds is incredibly simple," says University of Georgia's Paul R. Story in describing his new general synthesis of large single ring compounds, now tediously prepared. By mild photolysis or thermolysis of a suitable cyclic ketone peroxide Dr. Story obtains good yields of macrocyclic hydrocarbons and lactones containing as many as 23 carbon atoms in the ring. "We're aiming for a hundred," he says. The procedure makes certain macrocyclic compounds available for the first time, particularly those with odd numbers of carbon atoms. It simplifies the route to others now made by the more difficult acyloin condensation of long straight-chain compounds. Moreover, since the method uses easily prepared peroxides of such inexpensive starting materials as 18 cent-per-pound cyclohexanone, it promises economic advantages to the perfume industry in synthesizing various musk compounds, Dr. Story explains. For example, dihydroambrettolide—a 16-carbon ring c o m p o u n d now costs about $280 per pound. In their procedure [/. Am. Chem. Soc, 90, 817 ( 1 9 6 8 ) ] , Dr. Story and
Mild conditions give good yields of macrocyclics
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