Innovation is that eureka moment. It is when the light bulb comes on. It is the ah-ha moment. But is it? Is innovation dramatic? The layperson looking at an innovation as it is revealed to the market sees a remarkable, almost instantaneous advance by an individual or group of individuals that are brilliant. And the innovators are, in many instances, justifiably talented and leaders in their field. But is their advancement a single revelation. Thomas Edison did indeed invent the light bulb. But rarely is an innovation made in a leap or bound. Often an innovation is a single incremental step built on the foundation of a bedrock of laborious hard work.
Scientists, engineers, technicians, tradesman, homeworkers (innovators all) work tirelessly to solve problems. If there a common characteristic in this regal group it is that they recognize a need for a solution to some deficiency or lacking that surrounds us. And while the solution may seem monumental, the innovation is typically incremental. Tireless examination and investigation followed by experimentation and analysis with confidence that the countless failures are not failures at all but rather a step toward a working solution. And with each step a small incremental change, an innovation, enabling the process to begin anew.
When change is incremental, it often becomes difficult to see if there is indeed any innovation happening at all. To a scientist or engineering that has been working in a lab for a year or more it is challenging to recognize when an incremental advance toward reaching a solution is innovate. And yet is it these small innovative steps that are critical to success as is the perseverance to push through countless failures to gain that next step forward.
Patents protect inventions. An invention can be loosely defined as a practical and useful implementation of an innovation. And while patents often appear by title to be transformative, the actual innovation in each patent is typically incremental. A sound intellectual property strategy maps out these incremental changes thereby protecting each innovation and forming a labyrinth of rights over the transformative solution. Periodic review of a pioneering project assures that innovations / inventions are recognized and protected. It also enables a detached review of progress that can be hidden when examination occurs from within.
Thomas Edison failed over 3000 times before he “invented” the incandescent light bulb. During that process he filed over 400 patents on incremental attempts that seemed promising. He captured … arguably created … an industry even when most of us only remember one “innovation”.
