An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is a process within an overall engineering
and product development process. It may be an improvement upon a
machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result.
An invention that achieves a completely unique function or result may
be a radical breakthrough. Such works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field. An inventor may be taking a big step in success or failure.
Some inventions can be patented. A patent
legally protects the intellectual property rights of the inventor and
legally recognizes that a claimed invention is actually an invention.
The rules and requirements for patenting an invention vary from country
to country and the process of obtaining a patent is often expensive.
Another meaning of invention is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social behaviors adopted by people and passed on to others. The Institute for Social Inventions collected many such ideas in magazines and books.
Invention is also an important component of artistic and design creativity. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability.
Three areas of invention
Inventions are of three kinds: scientific-technological
(including medicine), sociopolitical (including economics and law), and humanistic, or cultural.
Scientific-technological inventions include railroads,
aviation, vaccination, hybridization, antibiotics, astronautics, holography, the atomic bomb, computing, the Internet, and the smartphone.
Sociopolitical inventions comprise new laws, institutions, and
procedures that change modes of social behavior and establish new forms
of human interaction and organization. Examples include the British Parliament, the US Constitution, the Manchester (UK) General Union of Trades, the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the Olympic Games, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as movements such as socialism, Zionism, suffragism, feminism, and animal-rights veganism.
Humanistic inventions encompass culture in its entirety and are
as transformative and important as any in the sciences, although people
tend to take them for granted. In the domain of linguistics, for
example, many alphabets have been inventions, as are all neologisms (Shakespeare invented about 1,700 words). Literary inventions include the epic, tragedy, comedy, the novel, the sonnet, the
Renaissance, neoclassicism, Romanticism, Symbolism, Aestheticism, Socialist Realism, Surrealism, postmodernism, and (according to Freud) psychoanalysis. Among the inventions of artists and musicians are oil painting, printmaking, photography, cinema, musical tonality, atonality, jazz, rock, opera, and the symphony orchestra. Philosophers have invented logic (several times), dialectics, idealism, materialism, utopia, anarchism, semiotics, phenomenology, behaviorism, positivism, pragmatism, and deconstruction. Religious thinkers are responsible for such inventions as monotheism, pantheism, Methodism, Mormonism, iconoclasm, puritanism, deism, secularism, ecumenism, and Baha’i.
Some of these disciplines, genres, and trends may seem to have existed
eternally or to have emerged spontaneously of their own accord, but most
of them have had inventors.
Process of invention
Practical means of invention
Idea for an Invention may be developed on paper or on a computer, by writing or drawing, by trial and error, by making models, by experimenting, by testing and/or by making the invention in its whole form. Brainstorming
also can spark new ideas for an invention. Collaborative creative
processes are frequently used by engineers, designers, architects and
scientists. Co-inventors are frequently named on patents.
In addition, many inventors keep records of their working process - notebooks, photos, etc., including Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Evangelista Torricelli, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein.
In the process of developing an invention, the initial idea may
change. The invention may become simpler, more practical, it may expand,
or it may even morph into something totally different. Working on one invention can lead to others too.
History shows that turning the concept of an invention into a
working device is not always swift or direct. Inventions may also
become more useful after time passes and other changes occur. For
example, the parachute became more useful once powered flight was a reality.
Conceptual means
Invention is often a creative process.
An open and curious mind allows an inventor to see beyond what is
known. Seeing a new possibility, connection or relationship can spark an
invention. Inventive thinking frequently involves combining concepts or
elements from different realms that would not normally be put together.
Sometimes inventors disregard the boundaries between distinctly
separate territories or fields. Several concepts may be considered when thinking about invention.
Play
Play may lead to invention. Childhood curiosity, experimentation, and
imagination can develop one's play instinct. Inventors feel the need to
play with things that interest them, and to explore, and this internal
drive brings about novel creations.
Sometimes inventions and ideas may seem to arise spontaneously while daydreaming, especially when the mind is free from its usual concerns. For example, both J. K. Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter) and Frank Hornby (the inventor of Meccano) first had their ideas while on train journeys.
In contrast, the successful aerospace engineer Max Munk advocated "aimful thinking".
Re-envision
To invent is to see anew. Inventors often envision a new idea, seeing it in their mind's eye.
New ideas can arise when the conscious mind turns away from the subject
or problem when the inventor's focus is on something else, or while
relaxing or sleeping. A novel idea may come in a flash—a Eureka!
moment. For example, after years of working to figure out the general
theory of relativity, the solution came to Einstein suddenly in a dream
"like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the
universe outlined itself in one clear vision". Inventions can also be accidental, such as in the case of polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon).
Insight
Insight can also be a vital element of invention. Such inventive insight may begin with questions, doubt or a hunch.
It may begin by recognizing that something unusual or accidental may be
useful or that it could open a new avenue for exploration. For example,
the odd metallic color of plastic made by accidentally adding a
thousand times too much catalyst led scientists to explore its
metal-like properties, inventing electrically conductive plastic and
light emitting plastic-—an invention that won the Nobel Prize in 2000
and has led to innovative lighting, display screens, wallpaper and much
more.
Exploration
Invention is often an exploratory process with an uncertain or
unknown outcome. There are failures as well as successes. Inspiration
can start the process, but no matter how complete the initial idea,
inventions typically must be developed.
Improvement
Inventors may, for example, try to improve something by making it
more effective, healthier, faster, more efficient, easier to use, serve
more purposes, longer lasting, cheaper, more ecologically friendly, or aesthetically different, lighter weight, more ergonomic, structurally different, with new light or color properties, etc.
Implementing Inventions
In economic theory, inventions are one of the chief examples of "positive externalities",
a beneficial side-effect that falls on those outside a transaction or
activity. One of the central concepts of economics is that
externalities should be internalized—unless some of the benefits of this
positive externality can be captured by the parties, the parties are
under-rewarded for their inventions, and systematic under-rewarding
leads to under-investment in activities that lead to inventions. The patent system captures those positive externalities
for the inventor or other patent owner so that the economy as a whole
invests an optimum amount of resources in the invention process.
Invention vs. innovation
In the social sciences,
an innovation is something that is new and better and has been adopted
and proven to create positive value. This is a key distinction from an
invention which may not create positive value but furthers progress in a
given area of development. The theory for adoption of an innovation,
called diffusion of innovations,
considers the likelihood that an innovation is adopted and the taxonomy
of persons likely to adopt it or spur its adoption. This theory was
first put forth by Everett Rogers. Gabriel Tarde also dealt with the adoption of innovations in his Laws of Imitation.
Purposes of invention
An invention can serve many purposes, and does not necessarily create
positive value. These purposes might differ significantly and may
change over time. An invention or its development may serve purposes
never envisioned by its inventors. Plastic is a good example.
Invention as defined by patent law
The term invention is also an important legal concept and
central to patent law systems worldwide. As is often the case for legal
concepts, its legal meaning is slightly different from common usage of
the word. Additionally, the legal concept of invention is quite different in American and European patent law.
In Europe, the first test a patent application must pass is, "Is
this an invention?" If it is, subsequent questions are whether it is new
and sufficiently inventive. The implication—counter-intuitively—is that
a legal invention is not inherently novel. Whether a patent application
relates to an invention is governed by Article 52 of the European
Patent Convention, that excludes, e.g., discoveries as such and software as such.
The EPO Boards of Appeal decided that the technical character of an
application is decisive for it to represent an invention, following an
age-old Italians and German tradition. British courts don't agree with
this interpretation. Following a 1959 Australian decision ("NRDC"), they
believe that it is not possible to grasp the invention concept in a
single rule. A British court once stated that the technical character
test implies a "...restatement of the problem in more imprecise
terminology."
In the United States, all patent applications are considered
inventions. The statute explicitly says that the American invention
concept includes discoveries (35 USC § 100(a)), contrary to the European
invention concept. The European invention concept corresponds to the
American "patentable subject matter" concept: the first test a patent
application is submitted to. While the statute (35 USC § 101)
virtually poses no limits to patenting whatsoever, courts have decided
in binding precedents that abstract ideas, natural phenomena and laws of
nature are not patentable. Various attempts were made to substantiate
the "abstract idea" test, which suffers from abstractness itself, but
eventually, none of them was successful. The last attempt so far was the
"machine or transformation" test, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided in
2010 that it is merely an indication at best.
Invention in the arts
Invention has a long and important history in the arts. Inventive thinking has always played a vital role in the creative process. While some inventions in the arts are patentable, others are not because they cannot fulfill the strict requirements governments have established for granting them. (see patent).
Some inventions in art include the:
- Collage and construction invented by Picasso
- Readymade invented by Marcel Duchamp
- mobile invented by Alexander Calder
- Combine invented by Robert Rauschenberg
- Shaped painting invented by Frank Stella
- Motion picture, the invention of which is attributed to Eadweard Muybridge
Likewise, Jackson Pollock
invented an entirely new form of painting and a new kind of abstraction
by dripping, pouring, splashing and splattering paint onto un-stretched
canvas lying on the floor.
Inventive tools of the artist's trade also produced advances in creativity. Impressionist
painting became possible because of newly invented collapsible,
resealable metal paint tubes that facilitated spontaneous painting
outdoors.
Inventions originally created in the form of artwork can also develop
other uses, i.e., Alexander Calder's mobile, which is now commonly used
over babies' cribs. Funds generated from patents on inventions in art,
design and architecture can support the realization of the invention or
other creative work. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's 1879 design patent on the Statue of Liberty helped fund the famous statue because it covered small replicas, including those sold as souvenirs.