
Invention - silentbicycle
http://kevinlawler.com/invention
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jeremymims
Stanley I. Mason, who I met once later in his life before he passed away was
what we might call a true inventor. He was kind enough to show me his shop and
to give me some of his design notebooks (I returned them to his daughter after
he passed).

He invented the disposable diaper, the form-fitting sanitary napkin, the
squeezable bottle, the granola bar, microwave cookware, the underwire bra, the
garbage compactor, stringless band-aid packaging, heated pizza boxes, and much
more from his home in Connecticut.

I remember a few things quite clearly:

\- He had a map of all the places he had flown to, much of it on his own
plane.

\- He was adamant that I learn how to draw if I ever wanted to invent
something I could patent.

\- There was an old Mercedes in his driveway that he modified to run on
soybean oil and he regretted that he wasn't able to convince car companies or
congress to take it seriously.

\- He was incredibly generous with his time.

\- His home was part workshop and he didn't have a long commute.

It's actually hard to believe that the man doesn't have a Wikipedia page. For
those who are interested, he wrote a very short book called "Inventing Small
Products" which could be taken as inspiration, not a "how-to" guide. He also
wrote a book called "Going Solo" which I haven't read but for $3.99 used will
order immediately.

~~~
mdonahoe
I think I saw a documentary on him in school. It was an interesting life: come
up with crazy demos, and convince other people to turn them into products.

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calinet6
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. (possibly mis-
attributed)

Been there, done that. The next wave of invention has yet to come, and it
won't be anything like you can possibly expect. If it were, you'd have
invented it already.

~~~
guscost
I don't normally quote scripture around strangers, but:

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is
nothing new under the sun."

Ecclesiastes 1:9

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domador
I was surprised by the number of powerful ideas packed into this essay. My
intellectual horizons have been broadened!

Maybe some (or all) of these ideas are old and familiar to others, but most of
them are new to me.

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laglad
OP mentions that we're reaching the limits of our inventiveness. Not true.
We're just getting more accustomed to constant invention, constant change.
When invention becomes the constant state, nothing is seen as invention.
Invention is now normal.

It is just the name of the thing that has changed, not the thing itself.

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tmh88j
The other day I saw a commercial for the company Invent Help . I usually
ignore them but for once it really got me thinking. They start by saying
something along the lines of "are you an inventor..." which lead me to ask the
same question as you (assuming you're Kevin); does anyone actually give them
self the title "Inventor?" Event if you "invent" full time, doesn't that seem
a bit pretentious? It could just be the US culture, but inventors seem to be a
term to describe originators of technology, pushed by Hollywood. In movies and
tv shows today we have engineers and scientists, decades and centuries ago we
had inventors. I could go into a whole rant about the Invent Help company, but
I'll save that for another time.

~~~
kcl
We have some of the same thoughts on the matter. There was a thread on
invention and marketing that I had to drop. Treating the marketing aspect
properly takes the conversation too far away from the main subject. Points
like who invented what first are too hot to introduce without spending a lot
of time accounting for them. (That surprised me.) The same goes for who can be
considered an inventor today.

I think invention and marketing have an old and deep connection.

~~~
zio99
Hey Kevin,

1\. About half-way through, you said that nobody would pay to own a pre-
iPhone, or would give two twenty year olds the run of a plant. But what about
Pebble? Granted, it's not built in a garage, but this printrbot could be:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printrbot/printrbot-
your...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printrbot/printrbot-your-
first-3d-printer)

You did say that there was a reversal of this trend, but can you clarify what
you meant when you said _"In 2012 it almost defies belief."_

2\. I like the take on attributing inventions to a single inventor - this was
brought up in the book _"The Myths of Innovation"_ by Scott Berkun which he
talks about in a lecture at Carnegie Mellon:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amt3ag2BaKc> and the premise for my website
<http://brownieinmotion.ca> (read the essay on 3M) where I say that expertise
in one domain helps you solve problems in another (also the reason I pursued
three degrees in engineering, music and economics).

3\. I agree with your counter-argument to entrepreneurs chasing ideas that are
too small. I wanted to add my thoughts on that. Groupon didn't think that
selling 2-for-1 coupons were beneath them. I elaborated on it here: _The Move
to Less Productivity_
[http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/25224585415/the-
move...](http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/25224585415/the-move-to-less-
productivity) Google, RIM, etc got to where they where by a series of small
attainable steps. Eventually, they discover a scalable model.

4\. Also wanted to add to your take on lottery tickets/incubators. Getting
into an accelerator program was never a permission slip for doing what you
love. But business planning is essential, even if the plan is worthless (to
paraphrase Eisenhower) and to paraphrase the founder of Zappos: the goal is
not to lower risk, but to go for higher expected positive outcome.

Thanks for sharing Kevin. If you don't mind, please critique my book-in-
progress on innovation and startups: <http://bit.ly/icecreamstart>

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currywurst
A constant state of curiosity is essential for "invention". The article gave
me a sense of smugness that wouldn't let one sustain such a mental state.

Now, I'm off to get my antidote fix of Richard Feynman ;) !

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hcarvalhoalves
There are few inventors _a la_ Da Vinci nowadays because our society is based
on industrial standards, and as such, rewards specialization.

The most innovative work will come from people spanning multiple areas of
human knowledge: informatics and biology, chemistry and physics, sociology and
medicine...

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tocomment
I've actually got a ton of ideas for inventions but I have no idea how to
break into the business. Any advice? Any books I could read?

~~~
ChuckMcM
There isn't really a 'break into the business' there is a process for filing a
patent. You can look it up at uspto.gov. There are filing fees etc, they have
been reduced for 'small' inventors courtesy of the JOBS act. Generally the
application in by registered mail, and then answering all the questions that
come back is sufficient. If you pay an attorney to do that its about $20K
these days but it can be done for much less than that on your own. The risk
you take by doing it on your own is that you don't write claims in your patent
that hold up when challenged, or allow people to avoid your patent while still
implementing your idea.

~~~
tocomment
What are your thoughts on provisional patents?

Also I'm most confused what to do after getting a patent. How do you interest
companies in licensing it?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, lets separate two things.

1) There is no business where joe random person writes up a patent, gets it
issued, and then BigCorp comes along and offers to buy it for eleventy billion
dollars. That is a myth, a pipe dream, a fantasy. Doesn't happen (not that it
_can't_ happen, just that it doesn't)

2) You invent something to solve a problem, generally people who invent things
are quite taken with their own inventions, so they build them. A provisional
patent is a good way to establish patent protection for your idea before
you've invested too much time and effort into it, and it can make it easier to
talk to third parties about it because they can't "steal" it if you've already
got a provisional filed.

That said, you either self fund, or you convince folks of how great it is to
fund you, and you convince them to help you build it. Then you find people who
have the problem it solves and you try to sell it to them. If they buy it, you
build more and continue. If nobody buys it, well you go on to your next idea.
If you can't sell your idea you might partner with someone who is good at
selling things.

This is all basic stuff. Its not "easy" in that there aren't any "easy" roads
to success, if there were it would be trampled by everyone using it.

------
TYPE_FASTER
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen>

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zaptheimpaler
Wow, that was truly a brilliant article, one of the best I've read in a long
time.

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xkrebstarx
And as William Morris once said: "Nothing useless can be truly beautiful."

