Some Personal Memories of Developing Commercial Lightning Detection Systems

In the mid-1970s, my colleagues and I were awarded several patents on the use of gated, wideband sensing techniques in electromagnetic sensors that were designed to locate the strike points of cloud-to-ground lightning. In this talk, I will provide some personal recollections of how the ideas evolved and the patent licensing process at the University of Arizona; how we formed a company to develop and manufacture commercial products; how we defended the patents against infringement and questions about their validity; how we merged the company with a larger conglomerate; and the challenges of maintaining a continuing involvement with the technology.