Innovation is NOT “the process of successfully bringing a product to market” as you suggest. You, for some personal reason, have interjected your own biased opinion into the discourse as if it were FACT. It is not. Please site a legitimate source that agrees with your opinion of the definition, and I’ll bet I COULD argue successfully against it in court.

There is a court of law over the definitions of words? Really?

I stand by my definition of innovation. It is pretty clearly established that this is the definition, and I see it used widely among experts in the field. I picked it up from Michael Schrage, who is rather well accepted in the world as an expert on innovation, but it’s been in use by many others as well.

It’s pretty much the standard definition within economic circles, from Schumpeter on down.

But, really, the definition of innovation is a bit of a side note. Admittedly, I use it as short hand for the actual key language that’s important when it comes to the patent system:

“promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.” To me, that’s what innovation is. It’s anything that promotes science and the useful arts. And, when a patent system is shown to hinder such promotion, then it goes against its purpose.

And the economic evidence quite clearly shows that the patent system harms the promotion of progress in these two vital areas in very important ways.

There’s nothing in any standard, declarative, and/or authoritative document that confuses and conflates the ‘novelty’ of an idea, with the delivery of said novelty to market. Delivery and novelty are mutually exclusive (novelty implies benefit. Benefit implies value). Delivery is transport, or transition. This is clear. No need to muddy the waters with vaporous musings.

Actually, yes, it’s quite important. The patent system is for promoting *progress*, not invention. It’s not for promoting “newness” but actual practical progress in science and the useful arts. Thus, the delivery is perhaps even more important than the novelty, because the novelty is meaningless if not accompanied by a delivery mechanism that helps promote it.

But people DON’T (generally) invent things for the sake inventing. The end motive is profit.

Indeed. Have I ever said otherwise? But the way to profit is in the market. By bringing to market a successful product.

But by the very nature of your business model, which by your own admission was fashioned in part to insulate you from infringement, reflects that there was something OF VALUE to protect BEFORE commercialization. Otherwise you would be a non-profit, open-source operation. I suspect you are not.

This formulation confuses me. First off, why should I want to “protect” anything here? I don’t. I want to offer a valuable service (and the value is determined by the end user, not my company — so, I don’t see how there’s value before a customer can evaluate it). I don’t need “protection” to do that. I need a good product that a customer values. Focusing on protection rather than what can help a customer is a short cut to failure.

Any item OR service, innovative OR not, has a value that is PREDETERMINED PRIOR to market. ABSOLUTELY NO ONE establishes a value AFTER a product goes to market.

That is simply, totally incorrect. While Adam Smith may have agreed with you, that was one of his major mistakes. You will not find a modern economist who agrees with you at all.

Value is determined in the marketplace absolutely. There is no predetermined value of any product. That’s simply, almost laughably, false.

You are using an argumentative tactic of hiding behind, and using generalizations to obscure some very well known truths, in order to marginalize, or as far as I can tell, nullify the value that the original authors/inventors bring to the table. And then assert that it is mainly the “marketer” that come up with the ideas.

I am not, in any way, marginalizing the value of the person coming up with the ideas. I’m rather offended that you would suggest such a thing. What I am defending is the value of ALL THE OTHERS who also came up with such an idea, and dared to actually bring it to market. I find it somewhat offensive that you seem to think that only one person could come up with an idea, thereby stomping out the inventive spirit of all those others. You claim to be on the side of inventors, but shame on you for dismissing the work of everyone else.

And, I NEVER said that it was marketers who had all the ideas. That’s ridiculous. I did say that the idea of a “flash of genius” is often marketing in reverse. Marketers like to take an incremental advance, and pump up someone as being a great inventor. Look, for example, at Edison’s “inventions.” Almost none were actual inventions done by Edison. Many were outright copied from others. Others were merely minor incremental improvements. But as a marketer, Edison was great at pushing the myth that he had these flashes of genius. The number of other inventors who had their careers ruined by Edison’s marketing is quite long.

Look up or web-search IDEO, or FROG DESIGN. Both are design consultancies, that are hired by fortune 500 companies to produce ‘innovative’ products that their client then in-turn introduce to the marketplace. TWO completely different steps, involving very different role players to achieve this end.

I’m quite familiar with both companies, and have worked with them and others on past projects. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, however. They are quite amazing at design, and it’s great working with them. So what?

Also I see that you have not addressed some of the basic facts I presented in my previous post. Instead you seek to tacitly promulgate and introduce a socializing element into a capitalist practice, in the name of innovation to suggest some bizarre notion that innovation belongs to everybody.

Huh? This makes no sense. I am not talking about any sort of socializing element. I am, in fact, very focused on the very capitalistic element of the free market, and allowing competition *in the marketplace* to determine who gets the rewards.

You, on the other hand, seem to support a system of gov’t granted monopolies, the opposite of free market capitalism.

Please explain how my approach is somehow more socialistic than yours? I would argue the opposite is true.

In addition, I see you’ve since ‘clarified’ the purpose of the patent office. When you change your premise midstream, your argument fails.

I fail to see where I changed a premise at all. The purpose of the patent office is to process patents. The purpose of the patent system is to promote the progress. I have not deviated from that in the slightest.

However, I think your bizarre notion that the INVENTORS should be excluded from profits, simply because other entities have means to introduce said invention (presumably novel) to the market, based on an illogical premise and obscure definition of “INNOVATION” is a failure of reason.

Please, I would suggest that you respond to what I actually write, rather than what you seem to have wished I wrote.

I NEVER said, nor implied, that an inventor should be excluded from profits. My goodness. It boggles the mind that you would read that into my writings. I simply said that the reward comes from the market, just as it should in a capitalist society.

Any body or group of persons that creates a cure for aids, by your logic, does not constitute a breakthrough(which is what an innovation is basically, a breakthrough). The market has no bearing on whether or not that is true.

Again, you appear to be responding to what you wished I’d said rather than what I actually said.

It is quite true that a cure for AIDS without a corresponding way of making use of that cure in the market has no value. I defy you to explain how it has any value at all in those circumstances.

Because all that is required to establish value (whether high or low) is a need(i.e. “market” which is different than a marketplace) and a ‘something’ to address that need.

Yet, by your own odd definition, there is NOTHING that can address the need, because you quite clearly stated there was no way to get this cure to market.

Look, if the cure for AIDS is a whiff of the atmosphere on Jupiter, that has NO VALUE. There is no delivery mechanism to get that to people. The market will decide that there is no value in that. There may be value in learning from that to create a BETTER cure, that can be delivered here on Earth, and in that case, we should want as many different folks working on such a solution as possible, to guarantee that we get the best one.

But by casting PATENT protection as merely a vehicle through which to encourage (which it does IN PART ONLY, by protecting the holders investment) INNOVATION, meanwhile avoiding the very end reason WHY most inventors and engineers aspire to share their inventions (PROFITS), and, within a capitalist context is either naive, or intellectually disingenuous

Again, you do serious damage by simply assuming false statements. I believe inventors deserve profits, absolutely, but they get those profits from the marketplace — just as capitalism intended. You, on the other hand, appear to prefer a system where the gov’t decides who the winner is, and grants them a monopoly and a tollbooth. That seems a lot closer to socialism than the model I discuss.

Either way, I guarantee you sleep better at night knowing your “ideas” and therefore your “business” is PROTECTED.

Not at all. As I have made clear, I don’t want to “protect” a damn thing. I want to offer a great product and service, that my customers determine have true value. I have done so and hope to continue to do so. Protecting anything doesn’t make sense.

The market does not determine the value of genius, profundity, or novelty of an idea. Its’ novelty IS its’ own value. (as illustrated above in the aids cure ex.). The marketplace dictates only what one is willing to pay, or capable paying, for a particular good or service in the CONTEXT of a marketplace. Economics is a science with real and purposeful definitions that are directly applicable to ANY product, service, or resource within and connected to its’ functional apparatus.

I am afraid, sir, that your understanding of economics may need some work.

Novelty is rarely a value at all. And the idea that any good has a set “value” is simply false, and I’d ask you to find a single modern economist who supports such a claim.

Your AIDS example was easily proven as untrue. A cure has no value without a sufficient delivery mechanism (the market) to bring it to those who need it.

Having said all that. Your perspective is ultimately anti-innovation as it will actually encourage a ‘zero sum game’ mentality.

Not at all. History has shown exactly the opposite, in fact. Less protectionism leads to bigger markets and more opportunities to profit. It’s the exact opposite of a zero-sum game. The research supports this in great detail. Eric Schiff’s research showed that economies without patents often demonstrate more and faster innovation. Lerner’s research showed that the implementation of stricter patent laws *decreased* innovation. And there’s plenty more research to go along with that.

Protectionism slows down innovation, because you take away the REAL engine of innovation: competition. If you have a monopoly and don’t need to compete, there’s no reason to innovate more. You rest on your laurels. If there’s real competition, then you keep innovating.

Innovation isn’t a once-and-done. It’s an ongoing process. Patents make it so that you can pretend its once and done and that vastly slows down the process.

It is, tragically, the patent system that is quite anti-innovation, and that is supported by numerous economic studies.

I’m ‘encouraged’ to spend more money on lawyers to PROTECT my interest from corporate scavengers. Because as an inventor and product designer with 14 years in the game, I know personally that the one-up-manship nature of the market competition DEMANDS that an entity introduce a ‘better’ product into the marketplace.

That, obviously, is your decision. Good luck to you. I would argue that in the long run, you will find that as your competitors focus less on protectionism and more on openness, you will be in a fair bit of trouble.

At that point, feel free to contact us. We can help you shift your business model to the 21st century and help you profit significantly more than before.