Invention Factory

Miscellaneous

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.