Invention | Hacker News Reader

Invention

kevinlawler.com

31 pointssilentbicycle21 comments

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I think those commercials appeal to the older folks who equate invention to objects one can hold in their hand. People who likely see Ron Popiel as a star inventor. They are also scams; my mom fell for this and she went and got some kit to help her bring to market her invention, the book-lift, ( a foldable book prop-up stand with an integrated ribbon bookmark, a device to help you read while sitting at a table eating (think of the function the iPad cover provides))

And they took her money and provided her with a bunch of useless into on how to patent something.

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.

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...

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... 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

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 ;) !

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...

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?

Hey Greg, if your problem is too many ideas and not being able to pick one to run with, there's a book on that: Ice Cream Startups http://bit.ly/icecreamstart Let me know if it helps.

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.

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?

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.

Make a prototype, make a decent video of the prototype in action, collect pre-sales on kickstarter to fund a first manufacturing run, scale up production until your market is saturated, re-invest profits into the next invention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

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

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

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