"Inventing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Perhaps one of history's greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, hit the nail on the head when he said his now famous quote. For the majority of my academic studies, the work involved with school merely dealt with completing the task at hand but focused little on creating new ideas to solve the problem through a completely different method. I am a believer in a Utopian society. So, I am continuously thinking of how ordinary activities can be optimized in order to accomplish tasks in the most efficient manner possible. Although I like to think that I have grandeur ideas, I have noticed some difficulties with transforming these abstract ideas into tangible implementations that have the potential to be patented.
At IBM, the culture strongly encourages employees to generate their own ideas, write up a description of the idea, and then submit the idea to a patent design team. While I have a day job consisting of an abundant of projects to complete by certain deadlines, I do enjoy imagining an ideal world and coming up with new ideas to move us from present day to this ideal world that I envision. Rather than watching TV late in the evening, as the majority of other people tend to enjoy, I prefer sitting down with my thoughts and letting my imagination run wild. While this purely used to be a hobby, I can now submit ideas that I develop on my own time through the IBM patent team. However, the idea engendering process is not as straight forward as I anticipated.
To begin, I am currently working with a team on an idea that has a strong possibility of passing through the rigorous patent process at IBM (I am also an optimist!). But, who wants to stop at one patent when they could develop a dozen more? If only it were simple to think of an idea and write it up during the twilight hours of the evening. Prior to joining IBM, I fabricated a plethora of "patent-able" ideas. What happened? For starters, I was unaware of the precedent work that others have published. Therefore, my ideas were definitely new and useful ideas, but more than likely lacked the punch, in terms of uniqueness qualities, that sent an idea all the way through the patent process.
While exploring the depths of my imagination in hopes of stumbling upon my next eureka moment, I discovered another attribute of the patent process that makes it somewhat difficult for idea thinkers. The potential patent has to exist as a plausible idea at a certain date in the future. Said another way, a potential patent cannot be too near-sighted because the idea may already exist or would require such simple implementation techniques that it would not surpass the minimum novelty requirements of patents. If the idea is too far-sighted, in terms of technological advancements, then the idea may be seen as too far-fetched and too abstract to implement within the realm of present knowledge. Therefore, the ideal patent must exist somewhere in the middle, in such a way that it is novel enough that no one has thought about the problem in the same way and that the patent architecture could be created in the near term future with modern technology.
Now that the difficulty of uniqueness and feasibility has been addressed, one must choose an area to host their idea search process. The ubiquitous nature and power of mobile computing has a garnered my attention. Not only does the vast majority of Earth's population own a phone, but they carry it on them at all times. The data that is generated through a mobile device is astronomical. I am also familiar with mobile computing and my creative side can envision many improvements in the mobile space to help better the world. Therefore, I now know where to look in order to start generating ideas on my own time.
As I embark on a career that reveres patents, I plan to start patenting early. Some of my short term goals include not only sending our current idea through IBM's patent process, but also adding one or two more patents to the list of my accomplishments. One of the main struggles that I currently face is giving my creative side the right size cage to develop, so that new ideas are not too small in terms of uniqueness and not too ambitious without a sense of plausibility. As Edison noted, inventing is 99% perspiration. I will keep pressing on until a worthy idea knocks me upside the head.
To begin, I am currently working with a team on an idea that has a strong possibility of passing through the rigorous patent process at IBM (I am also an optimist!). But, who wants to stop at one patent when they could develop a dozen more? If only it were simple to think of an idea and write it up during the twilight hours of the evening. Prior to joining IBM, I fabricated a plethora of "patent-able" ideas. What happened? For starters, I was unaware of the precedent work that others have published. Therefore, my ideas were definitely new and useful ideas, but more than likely lacked the punch, in terms of uniqueness qualities, that sent an idea all the way through the patent process.
While exploring the depths of my imagination in hopes of stumbling upon my next eureka moment, I discovered another attribute of the patent process that makes it somewhat difficult for idea thinkers. The potential patent has to exist as a plausible idea at a certain date in the future. Said another way, a potential patent cannot be too near-sighted because the idea may already exist or would require such simple implementation techniques that it would not surpass the minimum novelty requirements of patents. If the idea is too far-sighted, in terms of technological advancements, then the idea may be seen as too far-fetched and too abstract to implement within the realm of present knowledge. Therefore, the ideal patent must exist somewhere in the middle, in such a way that it is novel enough that no one has thought about the problem in the same way and that the patent architecture could be created in the near term future with modern technology.
Now that the difficulty of uniqueness and feasibility has been addressed, one must choose an area to host their idea search process. The ubiquitous nature and power of mobile computing has a garnered my attention. Not only does the vast majority of Earth's population own a phone, but they carry it on them at all times. The data that is generated through a mobile device is astronomical. I am also familiar with mobile computing and my creative side can envision many improvements in the mobile space to help better the world. Therefore, I now know where to look in order to start generating ideas on my own time.
As I embark on a career that reveres patents, I plan to start patenting early. Some of my short term goals include not only sending our current idea through IBM's patent process, but also adding one or two more patents to the list of my accomplishments. One of the main struggles that I currently face is giving my creative side the right size cage to develop, so that new ideas are not too small in terms of uniqueness and not too ambitious without a sense of plausibility. As Edison noted, inventing is 99% perspiration. I will keep pressing on until a worthy idea knocks me upside the head.
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