Category: About inventing

I’ll be in Australia for the festive season and I’ll not be posting on IOTD until 9th January (although I’ll still be inventing, of course!)

Have a great Yuletide and a highly successful 2012.

Thanks for reading,
Patrick

I recently read yet another advert-dressed-up-as-a-letter by a patent attorney in the IET’s E&T magazine.

I’m a member of the IET, so it galls me that
a) they aren’t banging the drum in support of restricted access to the title Engineer.

b) they continue to publish articles talking about the need to ‘recruit’ over two million new engineers by 2017. No chance, at current fee rates…and they mostly mean technicians anyway.

c) the magazine, and the profession, uncritically accept that patents offer a way for inventors to make money from ideas.

Anyway, here is my ranting response:

Patently obvious

Fraser Brown writes to defend ‘our’ patents system. It is not surprising that, as a patent attorney, he regards it as both fair and fit for purpose. Those of us who have ideas know better. Only established companies can even begin to consider paying the costs associated with hiring members of Mr Brown’s profession. Lone inventors are almost completely excluded from the benefits he mentions.

It’s nonsense to suggest that it’s even possible for the UK’s most inventive people to ‘take on the big boys’ via patents. Leaving aside drafting costs, we simply can’t afford policing or litigation. In practice, and in the absence of rich friends, the only way is to form an alliance with a corporate and tolerate the comparatively poor deals that that entails (if you can even find one that will listen). Otherwise, UK inventors have to use their creativity to skirt around existing patents or spot opportunities for quick sales of uncontended product ideas.

Patrick Andrews CEng

This is just a note to say that tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of this blog.

I’ve managed to post something new on 98% of the 1826 days since 21st November 2006.

Many thanks to the readers and commenters who have helped support my efforts. It’s greatly appreciated. Special thanks also to Kona for suggesting it in the first place.

There are many more ideas in the pipeline -as well as a forthcoming book detailing the methods and mindset which I rely on to maintain creativity.
Cheers,
Patrick

(I should also have expressed my thanks to everyone at SXC, whose photos I’m very grateful to be able to use)

I received some interesting comments lately on the general theme of ‘How can small companies and lone inventors possibly survive if they don’t have patents with which to defend their intellectual property?’ What follows is a response to that, as well as an extension of my earlier posts on this subject.

The declared purpose of patents is to promote innovation within a given country. An inventor is supposed to obtain a period of monopoly, in return for publishing his or her invention in detail (so that, later everyone can make use of it).

Governments thus seem to believe that:

it’s their role to promote innovation…although I’m not sure I’d accept that

a monopoly is necessary because, without that, no one would invent (which is just nonsense).

Patents work pretty well for big companies (even if the implementation details form a bureaucratic nightmare). These organisations can afford to play the game and, if they find themselves opposed by an inventor with a patent, then they can choose to ignore it in the knowledge that he or she can’t afford access to meaningful legal support. (There are alternatives to the patent business, such as prizes, but these have many difficulties of their own. Governments can declare that they seek eg a cure for cancer but then have to apportion rewards to a variety of different, competing part-solutions).

When trying to design a fair system for promoting and rewarding inventiveness, the first thing to get clear is that Research and Development are fundamentally different things. Here comes the Science part…

Research happens when you stumble on discoveries (even if you are hoping to find a cure for cancer or a replacement for the petrol engine at the time).

Development occurs when you work to deliver a product to match, as closely as possible, a multidimensional specification derived by marketing experts.

In that sense, coming up with an idea is very much more like research. Nobody knowingly ‘invests’ in research. What I mean by that is twofold:

investors, who always want to see a return, don’t tend to put money into the random walk that is the research process

it’s actually not possible to do anything other than spending on research. “Shell out the money, wait and hope” is not an investment strategy. Investment and Spending should not be confused.

So when someone has a brilliant idea, I’d argue that whoever is paying them, or whoever trained them, or whatever their declared objective, the idea was never ‘invested’ in -in that no sane investor would apply their funds without seeing a credible plan for how they would create a significant surplus.

Hire a group of creative, well-educated people and they will come up with 1000s of ideas; maybe 1% of which will ever be any use to anyone. It doesn’t mean that their funder invested in the ideas. He or she simply spent a lot of money. Societies recognise the benefits of research, so they spend money on Universities.

When an inventor comes up with something novel, lots of people start saying “I invested in that person, so I own the idea (because it wouldn’t have happened without my money/facilities/lectures)”. I see it all the time, when universities start demanding to own a % of their students’ inventions.

Ultimately, we can’t trace the causality within a creative process, so I’d argue the ideas aren’t where the value is, it’s in the people. In a sense, and inventors really get this, when an ‘aha’ moment occurs, the person to whom it happens can’t really take credit for it. It’s not something they willed into existence.

Ideas aren’t a form of property. We should stop acting as if they were like cars, or land or jewellery. Intellectual property, including patents, is an expedient construct, rather than as fundamental to innovation (Richard Stallman has commented on this blog in a similar vein).

So what would it mean for business, if we stop granting patents for example?

Wouldn’t corporations stop innovating and cause the end of civilisation? Well, large industrial companies almost never come up with novel ideas ideas anyway. Their gameplan is to compete on the basis of efficient marketing, product design, development, manufacture and distribution. Think for a moment about why Open Innovation has become such an attractive option for many corporates. Also-

“Since the second world war 95% of all the radical new inventions have come from businesses employing less than 5 people. The formation of those businesses is critical to our economic success”
David Irwin DTI 2001

If a company launches products that others can copy, then it seems to me that red-blooded capitalists should accept that they need to compete at the things they do best -not try to threaten and close-down the opposition.

Instead of controlling ideas, they should do temporary, exclusive deals for the (future) creativity of people who seem able to have good ones (as evidenced by competitions, publications and yes, blogs like this). It’s accepted among venture capitalists that a great idea is largely worthless without a great team of people and that, similarly, a super team can be later reassigned to work on someone else’s genius idea.

Ideas, it’s often said by those who don’t have them, are ten-a-penny. The people who can actually have a good idea, capable of underpinning a profitable product, are however, relatively few. If companies have to compete to sign contracts with these folk, the Inventives, let’s call them, then the fee rate for their work will soar and companies will increasingly be forced to behave ethically, for fear that the talent will go elsewhere.

SMEs may have an advantage under this regime by being able to deal with their Inventives in a more personal, responsive way. A few great ideas will also keep an SME going with product development for a longer period than would be the case for a multinational with numerous product lines to support. Even if ACME Corp. can re-engineer and undercut SME products, SMEs will often be better placed to react fast, highly personalised products and services and thus sustain international customer relationships.

Not convinced? Just think for a few moments about the effect of the Internet. Now, garage-startups can design, advertise, remotely manufacture and sell high-value, products -without themselves ever needing to build a factory or hire a ‘workforce’. Increasingly, big corporates are only service-based brands at the head of a pyramid of small manufacturers anyway. If you are a smart SME, you clearly won’t take on corporate competition head-to-head, but you’d never have succeeded at that -with or without patents. SMEs have always had to defend their niches without patents.

What’s in all this for big companies? First, they get to stop pretending they do research or inventing and can cut the associated costs. They also save on all of that potential litigation and all those retained lawyers. Best of all is that they can hire, on fees, the best Inventives they can afford and end up paying much less per successful product than they would ever have done if they had had to negotiate with an external patent-holder.

How about academe? Well Universities are currently plagued by guilt at their inability to commercialise the ideas they generate. Professors, under the new patentless system, would be free to act as Inventives for companies and not have to worry that they might be ‘giving away ideas worth a fortune’.

The incentive for Inventives would be improved too -by avoiding all threat of infringement suits and their crippling costs. People who can invent one good thing can repeat the process. It’s part of their DNA and they do it for fun, to become respected, to be useful and to make some money too.

My solution would therefore be to:

stop awarding patents, since they discriminate against the most innovative

launch some very high-value competitions so that our best Inventives can be identified and

start negotiating deals for the future value they can create.

In 20 years, we can have removed forever the brake on progress which patents represent.

Happy New Year readers (and very many thanks for the comments and donations towards InventorCentre in 2010 ).

I’ve made a list of the ideas that I most enjoyed having (140 ish -the ‘aha moment’ juicy stuff). That’s about 10% of the total. Of these, I guess about 10 have some commercial potential (I’m determined to make some money from one of them in 2011, despite having no ‘protection’).

I’ve added some pictures and fixed some typos, identified a couple of inadvertent reinventions (via the comments) and calculated that about 97% of the days since November 2006 have seen me inventing something. It’s still important to post daily, even if the idea is not very good. Maybe it will spark a better invention in your own mind.

If you discover any additional errors or omissions please let me know via pra@patrickandrews.com -all suggestions are very welcome as usual.

Cheers,
Patrick

Mark Sheahan (Inventor In Residence at the British Library) recently gave me some tips on how to make more money from inventing.

Here is the checklist he uses when advising Inventors via the British Library ‘Ask- an-Expert’ service:

Best solution: Is their idea the best solution to solve the problem for the target market?

Patent search: The importance of getting a professional patent search carried out, before spending significant amount of time and money on the idea -and who to use.

Market and size: Ways of finding details on the market and its size, to gauge whether it is worth commercially pursuing. Also, how they intend to reach this market, or help with it.

Manufacturability: If a physical product, can it be made, is the cost sustainable and is it fit for purpose? Getting ‘proof of concept’. Maybe showing them how I think it should be made can help.

Adding value: Most new ideas are generally better or cheaper – ideally both. I look for ways of adding value to the invention, so it offers more.

Reality check: I talk about “Getting off the train” now and again. An objective approach asking yourself the question “Is this worth continuing and, if so, am I moving in the right direction?” can often lead to a fresh perspective.

IPR strategy: Securing strong defendable intellectual property rights (IPR), be it a patent, registered or unregistered trademarks and design rights, copyright or, more commonly, a strategic combination (advice and direction).

Avoiding sharks: Avoiding invention promotional companies and doing proper due diligence on everyone – companies or individuals – that you intend to do business with (how to do this).

Business Models: What is the best way to set up the business, taking into account the product or service they are offering and how they want to exploit it?

The Business Plan: Best way is to compile a Business Plan with a focus on the most important commercial elements of their venture.

Contracts: The various contracts you will need to understand in this business, for example NDA’s, shareholder, licence, distributor and agency agreements etc. and maybe many more.

Funding options: How to get investors and/or available grants.

Negotiation: Getting the best deal, whether negotiating for a cost of something small or in a full blown licensing deal (some of the basic tricks to use).

Licensing: Why license? Plus the general terms and conditions of a licence.

Timeframes: Being realistic about the timescales involved in having an idea and making money from it, plus coming up with an exit strategy, if things go wrong, or right.

Objectives: What do they need to do to get the outcome they want? Clarity of intent can help direct them.

Re-motivation: This involves encouraging them to move forward, but may be in a different and more focused way, e.g. ‘’I like it, but …’’.

On-going support: Advise joining Inventors’ Clubs/organisations. Aside from providing a peer group where many find themselves ‘in the same boat’, they offer an opportunity of sharing experience, advice and expertise on many aspects of invention development.

I’ve also attached a related article Ask A Expert British Library Mark Sheahan. Contact me for further details.

If you fancy having an invention created in your name or dedicated to a loved-one, do make a small donation via the button on the right and drop me an email with the details of the individual concerned as well as any preferences as to application area etc.

As with all IOTD ideas, the invention will be published here -ie in the public domain of the loyal readership of this blog.

I’ll do my best to come up with something suitable within a week (and email you the link).

All income via this process will go towards the InventorCentre, as usual.
Cheers,
Patrick
(pra at patrickandrews dot com)

Do you know of potential sponsors for this blog?

If so, please introduce us.

I’m interested in working with businesses (or individuals) who want to identify their brands with dangerously-high levels of inventiveness

In silicon valley, where they aren’t shy about making money, it’s actually seen as much riskier to work for a major corporation than a startup. If the startup goes down, you have some valuable, transferable experience which will get you hired by some other garage company in the raft of such organisations. If a big company fails, it sinks like a stone, flooding the market with competitors for jobs on the next bandwagon.

Elsewhere, we desperately need to develop some healthier attitudes to risk. Leaders (remember them?) have to be prepared to defend investing even public money in experimental ways. Cherry picking, ie looking for a lottery win-sized certainty, via endless ‘due diligence,’ is flawed and sends the wrong message: “Don’t do anything until you get the guarantee of a big slice of shiny investment.”

Making money isn’t necessarily synonymous with greed. Graft need not be unglamorous. Ideas aren’t cheap.

Maybe you do have to be slightly crazy to invent anything. Certainly it helps to be insanely optimistic if you expect to make money from within our benighted intellectual property system.

Here is further evidence to this effect, from no less a source than a recent Sony patent.

You’d think that Sony would have a greater appreciation of inventiveness than to treat it as providing entertainment for idiots guffawing at a programme entitled ‘Crazy Inventors’.

It’s been a long time since the Walkman first appeared. I wonder why?