In a world full of problems that need solving, inventors are able to create solutions.

An inventor with a good idea can have a greater, more lasting influence on the world than a powerful politician or military general. Edison conquered half the world with a little glass ball (the dark half with the light bulb).

• deductive (now used almost exclusively)
  • "Erector-set of mechanisms" style
  • "Paint-by-numbers"
  • Imagination BEGINS with a parts/tools approach
  • Sees as "objects" rather than as "process"
  • Structural rearrangement of existing parts
  • Often looks at symptoms rather than causes
  • Impose a solution on the problem

• inductive (try 1000 ways until it works)
  • Shotgun approach
  • Focus on the problem not the parts-palette
  • Not how high you aim, but how often

• intuitive(undefinable)
  • "It just came to me"
  • "It just pours from me"

• (not really invention)
  • - Accidental (accidents can be good)
  • - Gadgeteer (if I invent it, they will come .... dreamers) gadgets are usually just marketing projects.

If invention is so important, why is the PACE so restricted ?

Inventors are widely distributed throughout every industry, yet inventors seem to have a hard time coming together to form an invention industry of their own.

... Idea development involves SHARING thoughts.

Ideas often do not grow because the originator is too paranoid of idea loss. Unlike under the copyright laws, the laws covering invention do not protect the idea originator very well. As a result, rather than gladly sharing our thoughts to make whole, viable ideas, we spend thousands protecting ideas from each other. This distrust within the invention community keeps the process fragmented, even though inventors may need each other's KNOWLEDGE, MONEY, or TIME to finish ideas. The result is that many partly-finished ideas languish unexplored, unfinished and unused.

.... Brainstorming is about ideas, not people

Brainstorming is often short-curcuited due to the the posturing, fear of speaking up, fear of being wrong and therefore looking foolish or incompetent, because in the corporate environment the job is often felt to be more important than the work. Brainstorming often concentrates on the individual's success first, then the success of the idea.

- only 10% of patent requests receive patents.

- only 10% of patents ever make any money.

.... that is a 1% success rate.

The patent system was supposed to have been designed to encourage innovation, yet patent laws are designed by and for corporate level lawyers. As in the software industry, many great ideas are born in people's garages. The patent laws offer little protection and aid to these individual inventors. For example, copyright infrigement is procecuted by the government in criminal court, yet a patent infringement is not and must be procecuted by the patent holder at his expense in civil court. Therefore, those with the most money and the greater ability to delay legal action, most often win disputes. If that wasn't enough of a burden, anyone can use someone elses patent and need not pay unless and until the patent holder discovers the infringement. The liability toward the infringing user applies only to that period of time after the infringment was discovered and the infringer was notified by the patent holder. Does this feel like a rigged game in which only those very well financed have a proper chance to play the game ?

Link: IBM Article on Patent Wars

The "Idea Man"

Companies are often not grateful enough toward the inventive mind. They may see the initial solution as a small part and not as important as the engineering and marketing functions. This is because they can more easily measure engineering and marketing output.

There is also a "not invented here" syndrome in which good ideas are more easily rejected because the in-house team can be resentful that they did not find that solution first.

Thinking vs. Doing

The old-style corporate structure tends to be a structured labcoat worker-drone atmosphere in which doing/action was more important than thinking/planning. It is hard to measure the productivity of a person sitting around thinking.

Can't Go Too Fast

Plant and Equipment is expensive and needs to be paid off, so change needs to be slow and methodical .... "tomorrow must not come too quickly". What happens when a much better idea comes on the heals of a prior new-idea that a company is already heavily invested in? Is it put to sleep?

Good Enough

At the same time the marketing team is anxious to sell the new idea. Even if it is not quite ready for "prime-time" they see it as "good enough" to sell. As a result the first few customers sometimes feel like guinea pigs used to work the final bugs out of a new technology release.

Business is very linear thru time, while invention is non-linear and unpredictable. The "mind-factory" that Edison created has become the "production-house'" of today and is evolving into the "mind-studio" of tommorow.

With inexpensive design, prototyping and physical simulation software and the additional communications advantages of the Web and E-mail, independent inventors are now able to better play along side the large companies.

In this new world, smaller is often better because it is more flexible to change. Alliances are replacing employees with associates as overhead is being reduced. Change can afford to be quicker. Old ideas can afford to be abandoned more quickly.

Different industries move at different paces. What is a long time in a slow moving industry may be way too long in a fast moving industry. We feel that patent protection should reflect these differences. The protection type and length should vary per industry.

Since new patentable ideas are so important to a nation and to the world, why do countries not pay for applications that result in patents? This would mean that independent inventors would be able to better function and patent lawyers would tackle inventions without up front payments if they felt that the application had a really good chance of succeeding.

Why do governments not enforce patent infrigements in the same way that they enforce copyright infringements? Why do they now leave it up to the inventor to defend his patent against well funded corporate legal departments?