What can be said about inventing solutions? Well it is a very important part of making advances in our civilizations. What are patents, and why are they so important to inventors? Patents are an “exclusive right granted by the government to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an invention for a certain number of years(Patent).” To better understand the importance of patents, we are going to look at the life of one of the inventors with the most patents, Thomas Edison. Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio to parents Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr., and Nancy Matthews Elliot, on February 11th 1947. He went to school briefly as a child, but he had a short attention span, and his mind often wandered. Shortly after he began school his mother
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It was a fast, and reliable way to report stock prices, that worked like a telegraph, and printed the information on “ticker tape”. The quadruplex telegraph was his first major success, and with the money from it he built his research laboratory in Menlo Park. His lab at Menlo Park is often credited with being the first industrial research lab of its kind. Edison, and his team of engineers spent their time there working on inventions, he believed would be successful. Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, which made him a celebrity, and gave him the nickname “Wizard of Menlo Park.” The phonograph was a device that recorded the human voice, and was capable of playing it back. There was a needle that made impressions on a soft tinfoil like paper, and when played back it made sound in the form of the voice that was recorded. The sound quality was very bad, and it could only be used a few times, but it was groundbreaking for its time. The next major invention he had was the practical incandescent light bulb. His incandescent light bulb was the product of years of research, and over 300 different types of filaments were used before he found the right one. Edison was not the first person to invent a light bulb, but he was the first to make a commercially practical one. The final version of the light bulb used a carbon filament. He got the patent for the light bulb granted in 1880. Unfortunately …show more content…
It is also easy to see why patents are an important part of the solution inventing process. Without patents, inventors could have their ideas stolen, and never get the proper credit or profit due for their inventions. Some might say that journal papers are also important, and that may be true. In the end though, patents are much more valuable than journal papers, because they have such a high earning potential. This is why it is a more difficult process to get a patent, than to publish a journal paper. I think it is safe to say that patents, and inventions go hand in hand, and they are both very important parts of moving forward. Unfortunately, I don 't see myself creating a patentable invention, because I lack the vision required for such a
It was a fast, and reliable way to report stock prices, that worked like a telegraph, and printed the information on “ticker tape”. The quadruplex telegraph was his first major success, and with the money from it he built his research laboratory in Menlo Park. His lab at Menlo Park is often credited with being the first industrial research lab of its kind. Edison, and his team of engineers spent their time there working on inventions, he believed would be successful. Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, which made him a celebrity, and gave him the nickname “Wizard of Menlo Park.” The phonograph was a device that recorded the human voice, and was capable of playing it back. There was a needle that made impressions on a soft tinfoil like paper, and when played back it made sound in the form of the voice that was recorded. The sound quality was very bad, and it could only be used a few times, but it was groundbreaking for its time. The next major invention he had was the practical incandescent light bulb. His incandescent light bulb was the product of years of research, and over 300 different types of filaments were used before he found the right one. Edison was not the first person to invent a light bulb, but he was the first to make a commercially practical one. The final version of the light bulb used a carbon filament. He got the patent for the light bulb granted in 1880. Unfortunately …show more content…
It is also easy to see why patents are an important part of the solution inventing process. Without patents, inventors could have their ideas stolen, and never get the proper credit or profit due for their inventions. Some might say that journal papers are also important, and that may be true. In the end though, patents are much more valuable than journal papers, because they have such a high earning potential. This is why it is a more difficult process to get a patent, than to publish a journal paper. I think it is safe to say that patents, and inventions go hand in hand, and they are both very important parts of moving forward. Unfortunately, I don 't see myself creating a patentable invention, because I lack the vision required for such a