SO GOOD THEY INVENTED IT
TWICE
Despite, or because of, the
current economic recession there seems to be an increase in the rate of
inventing. What can those pursuing patent applications learn about the process
from the inventions of the past? If we think about the most common inventions
we use today, they seem to have been produced fully realised. But many of our
favourite inventions had to be recreated in the form that we are now familiar
with. The steam engine, printing, television and aeroplanes initially had no
widespread use until their design was improved to such an extent that it almost
became another invention. The word ‘almost’, in this context, is something the
lawyers can argue about until the cows either come home, or they get replaced
by robotic bio-reactors. I am interested in how the inventions that we are
familiar with came into existence, in a form that is better than their original conception.
