Mike:

Of course, when an invention is created to be produceable, as many are, and in the manufacturing industries, most are, and the invention is a design ready to go into production, and nothing new is done to the product after it is designed, then the invention innovation requires no transformation innovation and probably minimal commercialization innovation, so the bulk of the innovation is indeed in the invention.

Sometimes you think things are nice and easy, only to find out that they are hard. Take, for example, invention. In the manufacturing world, the whole point of invention is frequently to develop a novel, produceable product. Done deal.

On the other hand, there are those who want to separate the invention of the product from selling it. Perhaps that makes sense in some fields. For others, perhaps not so much. For example, let us say that you want to develop a new tire that channels water away from the tire to improve traction in rain. You work on the design, you test it, and ultimately you come up with a new tread design that does exactly that. The invention is done.

Question: The invention is complete. It was designed to be manufacturable. Nothing else needs done to the invention to prepare it for selling, because manufacturing is done by previously existing processes. How does innovation enter this picture? Well, since the product was invented in a form that met a specific purpose, and was invented to be produceable, the only thing left for “innovation” to do is to present the product to customers and arrange for distribution. However, there is a problem with this picture, and that is that there is nothing new beyond the invention portion of the process, so everything that happened once the invention was complete cannot be called innovation or it becomes antithetical to the basic definition, which requires something to be new.

Okay, since something new did happen, the tire, and since the tire did become commercially successful, then innovation had to happen somewhere. It did. Back to that in a moment.

In 1986, Bruce D. Merrifield (Forces of Change Affecting High Technology Industries) defined innovation as consisting of three phases, invention, translation and commercialization.

In 1992, George Land and Beth Jarman (Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today) noted that innovation included, among other things, invention, exploratory management, duplication, modification and improvement.

Also in 1992, William G. Howard and Bruce R. Guile (Profiting from Innovation) noted that the innovation life cycle included three phases, beginning with emergence, which incorporates the development of a product, manufacture of the product, and its placement in the market.

In 1980, Modesto A. Maidique (Entrepreneurs, Champions and Technological Innovation) describe five phases for the innovation process. Step two was invention.

The current definition of innovation at the Bnet Business dictionary begins “the creation, development and implementation of a new product, process…”

Mike was kind enough to provide a link to informationworld, which states that invention is a subset of innovation. Mike has also provided links where some people define innovation as not including invention.

Stepping back, just what does this mean for a definition of innovation? It means that there is no one, universally accepted, definition of innovation. It appears that the classic definition of innovation encompasses invention. Since about 2004, there appears to be a movement to segregate invention from innovation, for reasons I am unable to fathom.

Now, back up to the tire example. Further, consider any highly engineered product that is, in effect, a gestalt. It is quite common to develop these products in a way that, once they have been invented, the “innovation” portion of the activity, meaning the new portion, is complete. This is generally true for many items, especially complex mechanisms such as combines, tractors, etc. Indeed, since the engineers doing the inventing are the ones selecting the materials to meet the requirements for the product, the product has to be complete on invention, or it will not work.

Converse example: I have worked with manufacturing and marketing people wanting to change a product, to “innovate” it. However, such “innovations” typically are one of two things. Either they turn out badly, or they are a part of a new invention that frequently needs additional design engineering work to turn the idea into a produceable invention.

Where does this leave the definition of innovation and invention? Well, if you are trying to say that innovation is not invention, then no where, because lots of people define innovation as a macroscopice phenomenon that encompases invention, and because there is an array of situations that range from the bulk of innovation being focused on invention to the bulk of innovation being focused on produceability and incremental improvement. When you deny that innovation includes innovation, then you deny innovation happens in many industries.

I wonder whether the huge range of definitions for innovation happen because innovation can be focused at various stages, either invention, transformation and commercialization, depending on the product involved. There is no one answer.

I also wonder whether there is wishful thinking on the part of some people who consider themselves innovators, believing that invention is unnecessary or undesirable. I see this when people claim that invention is relatively unimportant, and innovation is important.

I liken this claim by the light bulb that it is the most important thing because it is supplies light and therefore contains the most value, and thus the generator that creates the electricity is a tiny fraction of the process. Well, a typical consumer only knows the light bulb, and certainly the consumer is only buying electricity because it causes the bulb to work, but the moment the generator dies, the bulb will not work regardless of how loudly the consumer complains or wishes. Customers in several Midwest states found out the difference between delivery of a good and the creation that goes behind it when their power went out recently after an ice storm.

To be truly objective, all parts of the process should have equal value initially. Yet, there are two ways to view the invention portion of innovation and the transformation and commercialization portions of innovation. Since many innovators focused on transformation and commercialization claim that their portion of the process is more significant than the invention portion of innovation, then invention is highly leveraged, and from that viewpoint, more important. After all, if one invention innovation can yield ten transformation and commercialization innovations, which is more important? On the other hand, the customer truly values a product that perfoms a useful function, which, from a customer’s viewpoint, is the most important part.

When we stand back and view innovation as a process that extends from conceptualization to prototype, to testing and final design, manufacturing, and marketing, we realize that we need all the pieces of the puzzle to make innovation work.

I started reading these posts with great interest. Certainly Mike frequently has good points. However, Mike often has points that are off base (in my opinion).

What is most disappointing is that there appears to be no common ground when it comes to patents. People that post comments here are all over the place. If there was underlying value regarding the comments on patents, then some sort of “patent reform” movement might well gain traction. However, even the “anti-IP” people are unable to agree on exactly what that means.

There is also the practical viewpoint.

If this web site was somehow marshalling forces to make improvements, it might well be an intriguing and interesting concept. However, it just seems to be a place to complain about things that people do not like. I can hear complaining from a lot of different places. Guess what? Complaining does NOTHING. Offering and pursuing solutions does.

Then, of course, there are the numerous times where patents were implemented in countries that then showed a positive benefit from patents. Even in the case of the infamous Swiss chemical product patents, when Switzerland permitted “product” patents in 1977, Swiss exports of chemical products almost doubled, leading expanded exports. Clearly, the Swiss thought this was a success.

China considered the lack of creation of domestic plant varieties insufficient to keep pace with plant diseases. The Chinese governments did a survey among the various entities with the capability to create new plant varieties. Their universal response as to why they did not create new plant varieties was because the varieties could be easily copied, so there was insufficient payback for the investment it required to develop new plants. China decided to implement protection for new plant species and suddenly hundreds of new varieties of plants were created, helping keep the price of food sufficiently low enough for the average citizen to be able to afford to eat (the option was more expensive imported food).

The United States did the same thing in 1970. The government was concerned that the development of new plants was running about a dozen per year throughout the 1960s. However, more than 50% of all food crops were threatened by disease, and many non-food crops (e.g., cotton) were similarly threatened. The plant variety protection act was passed in 1970, and the number of new plants created per year leaped to about 300 per year. While people have pointed to a study that shows that the PVPA did nothing for wheat and corn, there is another study on cotton that shows that the PVPA was crucial for the health of cotton industries.

Of course, there are other studies that show the value of patents.

Do patents “divert” investment? Probably. However, the question is: diverted from what? The vague answer is “from something the market wants more.” I love that answer, because there is zero proof that is true. For all we know, that money will end up as lottery tickets or in slot machines (that may well be what the market wants, but the market wanted subprime loans too; look where that got us). It is possible that is more desirable from a market viewpoint. Maybe it will all end up in Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

To some extent, I feel the time I have spent here has been a waste. I do not seem to have affected anyone’s opinion, I have been unable to get anyone to see the value of the facts and studies I have prevented. Beating my head against the wall is an interesting pastime, but it just makes my head bruised.

There are a few “anti-IP” web sites on the internet. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of “pro-IP” web sites on the internet. There are about 139 countries that are signatories of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and most of the countries that have yet to become signatories either have little in the way of invention, or have their own patent system (sometimes both).

In spite of the glee that some people have when they point to Jefferson’s statements about the patent system, he also noted that inventors should be entitled to control their inventions for a time, and he was surprised at how invention appeared to increase after the implementation of the patent system.

The patent system is far from perfect. There have been a lot of abuses in the last couple of decades. Though the abuses get a lot of press, the vast majority of patents, somewhere around 97%, are never the source of a controversy.

People on this web site keep decrying that “independent inventors” are getting the shaft. Yet, only about 600 interferences occur each year, a tiny fraction of the 330,000 patent applications being filed. If “independent invention” was happening to any extent, there should be more interferences and more lawsuits. Indeed, if society saw that there was a real problem with “independent invention,” something would have been done by now. The number of cases of “independent invention” analytically is small; insufficient to raise even an eyebrow with IP watchdogs.

Thus, the problem is credibility. In general, people do not see a problem with intellectual property. When web sites exaggerate the problems or misstate them, as tends to happen often, credibility becomes even less, especially among the very people who have the most ability to change the laws.

If sites such as this one are going to have any real affect on intellectual property, they are going to have to take a different approach and do a better job of educating people. Until that happens, not only will things not change, they are likely to get worse.

As fun as it has been hanging around in here, it tends to be the same people, with the same comments, over and over again. It has gotten boring for me.

Ya’ll have fun…

Does the idea sound familiar?

I refer you to the EPO’s Scenarios for the Future (2007),see page 47 of 128, which suggested there could be a future world (ca. 2025) in which:
“Patents have a well-understood value in their own right as well as combined in portfolios – they’re more like the more exotic financial products of the 20th century and the uncertainty of their value over time makes them attractive to speculators.”