The magic word in these days of global competition, for corporations
and governments, marketers and educators, is innovation. How often do we
hear that companies must innovate to survive and countries must
innovate to compete?
Most
of us would agree we do indeed live in an age of innovation, where new
clothing designs, space-saving cappuccino machines, smartphone apps and
even business strategies capture headlines and cocktail party buzz
because they represent something new.
Yes, everybody loves innovation, and innovation is everywhere. But not all innovative ideas are created equal. When we talk about the most exceptional kind of innovation, the product of inspiration and hard work and significant investments of time and/or money, the concrete fruition of an idea that can change people's lives, we give it a more venerated name: invention.
Unfortunately, many
of us have forgotten what it takes to motivate the hard work,
investment and creativity that bring new inventions into the world. Or
maybe we have simply been blinded by short-term interests. Even as we
celebrate the merits of innovation and incessantly talk about the
growing significance of a knowledge-based economy, it has become all too
easy to take for granted the legal and economic frameworks that made
the technological wonders of modern life possible and are essential to
kindling future advances.
Take the mobile phone, which was found
to be the most useful invention of all time by more than 70 percent of
respondents to a recent global poll published in TIME Magazine. Of
course, it's not one invention, but the product of hundreds if not
thousands. Each new smartphone has its own uniquely cool features that
we, as consumers, value, and the marketplace is the metric by which we
measure which feature is most preferred or which manufacturer does it
better. Sometimes it's a new function that wins consumers' hearts,
sometimes it's form -- the look, the feel, the placement of buttons --
and sometimes it's a combination of the two. We all value and appreciate
these innovative distinctions and marvel at the spectrum of choices.
But
what about the science and engineering that make all smartphones
possible, that let hundreds of millions of people at the very same
moment talk to a friend on the other side of the globe or access key
business data or download the latest hit song or book or movie -- all
using the same spectrum that less than two decades ago was limited to
carrying a limited number of very expensive voice calls that frequently
suffered interruption. Now that's innovation. That's invention.
The
history of invention is a fascinating tale of humankind working to
discover how we can live better, happier, healthier lives. From the
wheel to the airplane, the light bulb to the radio telescope, the
telegraph to the smartphone, penicillin to portable AIDS diagnostics
kits, the act of invention is intertwined with the broader societal and
economic history of our world.
The
key to that support is the protection of intellectual property (IP). Patents are considered crucial for the invention process
because they offer the best incentive for inventors to strive to create
something new and useful and the only guarantee that inventors and their
financial backers will recoup a return on their invested time and
money.
Source: Huffingtonpost