Touchscreen News
Legal Woes for the Inventor of Touchscreen Technology
The man who many view as the creator of touchscreen technology made an otherwise minor geography error that could caused a substantial amount of his fortune to end up in the wrong place following his death.
During his decades-long career working as a nuclear physicist, Michael Crowley-Milling developed particle acceleration technology that was later used in touchscreen devices. While he alone wasn’t responsible for inventing touchscreen technology, he certainly played a major role in its foundation. Without his work in particle acceleration, perhaps we wouldn’t have touchscreen devices. Or at the very least, they would be quite different.
Using the newly developed particle acceleration technology, his team was able to create one of the world’s first capacitative touchscreens back in the 1970s. There have since been several other types of touchscreens created, but capacitative remains the preferred choice among many manufacturers and consumers alike.
Michael Crowley-Milling passed in 2012, including a stipulation in his will that his wealth in the UK would be distributed within the Royal Society — a scientific institution that’s well-known throughout the world. At the time, however, Crowley-Milling didn’t realize that nearly half of his fortune was being held in bank accounts in the US and Isle of Man, which of course are part of the UK. This resulted in the Royal Society receiving roughly half of his fortune, and the late scientist’s brother receiving the other.
But this case wasn’t cut-and-dry. Mr Justice Nugee awarded both halves of Crowley-Milling’s fortune to the Royal Society, viewing his mistake as a common typo error..
“Even though he may have changed his mind towards the end of his life, he didn’t do anything about it, and he didn’t change his will,” said Mr Justice Nugee. “Lawyers may understand perfectly well the technical meaning of the term ‘UK’. But there is no evidence that laymen – even highly intelligent laymen – would have grasped the difference between the UK, Great Britain and the British Isles,” he added.
It’s still too early to tell how this story will play out, but it appears that the Royal Society will receive the bulk of Crowley-Milling’s fortune.
What are your thoughts on this story? Do you think the Royal Society should be awarded both halves of Crowley-Milling’s fortune?