Welcome to the Solutions Tools Experience! Articles | Invention

By: Guy Starbuck

Invention is a new process, device, form, or matter composition.  Some inventions are based on pre-existing concepts, others are radically new breakthroughs which extend the normal realm of human experiences or accepted knowledge.  Invention takes an open and curious mind.

Inventive thinking at times will skip over standardly accepted boundaries in different fields or territories to combine elements into a new creation.  Inventing takes insight and can begin with play, questions, hunches, or simply by recognizing that something unusual may be used in a different light.  Sometimes after years of working on a theory, a clear solution will surface.

Insight fuels invention.  Sometimes an initial spark, vision, or hunch helps to create an invention.  Inventing is almost always an exploratory and risky process which succeeds sometimes after several failures.  As Einstein said, "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?".  Many inventors believe in their ideas and despite failures they don't give up or give in.  Other inventors discover greatness completely accidentally.

Inventions can serve many purposes, and sometimes these purposes will change over time.

Prior to an invention being eligible for any one of these patent categories it should possess particular qualities. To be included under a utility patent it must have the following criteria. It should be regarded as a machine having moving components or some kind of circuitry. It should be “an item of manufacture” which denotes that it must be a product capable of being produced and put on sale.

An additional quality that an invention to be categorized as a utility patent must have is that it should be a process or possibly a means that creates something substantial and useful. It should be composed of matter which covers products like chemicals, medication, soaps and so on. This patent also includes any enhancement or supplement to a currently available invention that will fall under one of the categories also. 

All inventions should have some kind of utility even if it’s very basic and insignificant. It should be an invention, which differs from what is currently available in the market. It should also be something which other inventors with the necessary product knowledge will regard as novel and exceptional.