BENGALURU : A few years ago, the media was flushed with news of a 19-year-old who claimed many inventions to his name, including invitations from NASA and the US President Donald Trump. Many publications withdrew their stories after it became clear there was not much to these claims. Interestingly, Gopal Jee and similar claims are not uncommon, and inordinate media attention to unverified inventions and self-proclaimed scientists are mucking up the ground for genuine start-ups and their innovations, experts point out.
For instance, let’s examine the case of Jee, who claimed to have two patents, which were later found to be untrue. When contacted, Jee said that these were “provisional patents”, but industry experts say such things do not mean much. “The moot question is what should be done in such cases? It brings bad name and devalues science and aspiring start-ups who want to take those innovations to commercial ventures,” said Kumar.
Speaking about the episode, Professor Prabhat Ranjan, VC, Dr DY Patil International University, Pune, says, “I tried to go into the invention to find out what patents he had filed and how his findings may be made commercially successful.” “If this is the case, then many people will ignore the findings of even genuine scientists. It is dangerous for media to publicise such things without verifying the content. It will create problems for people who want to invest into a start-up based on such fake findings,” Ranjan warned.