Invention Factory
from the but-will-it-work? dept
MIT's Tech Review has an article about Nathan Myhrvold's new project, where he wants to bring a bunch of inventors together into one company and let them invent stuff. The company plans to make money by licensing patents - and are trying to set up the compensation model so that the inventor shares in the success of the particular patents they are named on. Myhrvold says this model is the "4th generation" of inventing (following individual inventors, corporate research, and the "Silicon Valley model"). It's an interesting idea with some interesting names involved (Dean Kamen is an "advisor). However, there are a bunch of question marks. Inventors don't necessarily want to work together (and many have their own research labs already - such as Kamen, who is only advising, not joining). Plus, pure research ventures don't have a history of huge success by themselves. Sooner or later, money becomes a necessity, and so the "pure" research starts getting pressure to become more practical very quickly.
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4th Generation? What about Menlo Park
From what I understand Edison did this very successfully with his Menlo Park lab. http://www.hfmgv.org/village/invent/menlo/invent.html
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This is new?
I don't think there's much of a shortage of nonprofit R&D firms that do just this - generate new ideas without being handcuffed to a profit margin. Arbitrarily calling something the (X+1)th generation is certainly a good way to get free advertising in the media, though.
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Inventors are a great group to work with if you set the cculture rules up early. I started The Idea Alliance which I made money on for three years. What I want to say it is all in howe you handdddle the culture. You have to follow the innovator's team building guider that I worked for ten years before IP. IA. IS. were known and it works wonderfully. You have to fulfill a set of circumstances with your associate brains to become a family with bounderies.
Nathan is on to the right path.
For 10 years we had new products and some 10 years ahead of today. Grew 20%-30% per year 1991 - 1999.
Created, had a ball, helped not sell, and some other stuff. My wife is calling . Nathan will do it
Best,
Stephen R. Welch
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give latest invention of 4th generation
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