The recent discussion about The Wright Brothers got me thinking about how much invention and discovery in Yesteryear was undertaken by what appears (to the lay observer) to be “Average people with a lot of spare time”.
For example, the Wright Brothers ran a bicycle repair shop and Richard Pearse was a farmer with a knack for tinkering, yet they managed to built flying machines effectively in their garages and get them airborne. In 1903.
John Dunlop was a vet who invented the first practical pneumatic tyre, Charles Goodyear is said to have accidentally invented Vulcanised Rubber on his stove, and the percussion cap for firearms was invented by a Scottish clergyman.
Admittedly all of this stuff is from quite some time ago, but I was looking at an MP3 player today and realising that it’s not the sort of thing someone could come up with in their shed. In fact, when I look at most of the new stuff that comes on the market, it appears to be either developed by R&D labs with plenty of money, or minor improvements on existing stuff (or both).
That’s not a criticism, though- I think we all like living in an era with jet aircraft and the internet and modern medicine. But I’m wondering if the day of the “Backyard Inventor” coming up with meaningful, useful, world-changing inventions is long gone, or if there are still important discoveries being made by people tinkering around in their spare time?
I like how in the late night commercials for “official US government patent application kits” or what not, the inventions are always something really lame. I remember one where (accompanying the sales pitch/voiceover) some old feller was rigging up a series of straps to a large styrofoam beer cooler, and the next thing you saw was him walking around outside with the (had to be empty) cooler strapped to his back.
If you stretch the definition of “inventor” just a little bit (and maybe not that much at all), I think people with petri dishes in their apartment fridges could very well come up with something world-changing. Not to mention whatever the kids are doing on their home computing devices these days.
But anything involving the physical engineering of tangible machinery or “stuff”, I imagine that’s all down to corporations these days.
The invention has just moved into software. Open Source software like Linux is mostly written by people with a lot of spare time and for zero profit. The guts of Linux are as complicated as any MP3 player, but the costs for getting into the software business are virtually nil, when compared to rolling your own breadboards, purchasing LEDs etc.
Ipod and Droid aps would fit into this. I’ve invented lots of stuff for my personal use but not to be marketed. Things like a folding photo-copying stand that I used to reproduce historical photos. Most mechanics end up making odd tools for various applications.
Lots of people tinkering with home built aircraft. An then there are the all important inventions such as motorized bar stools. It’s all good.
If you try to set up a chem lab in your garage, the local cops bust you, the DA accuses you of running a meth lab, & when the charge doesn’t pan out, they feed you to the EPA for pollution violations & zoning ordinance violations to cover up the screw-up.
He may be rare, but not gone. Inventions arise from necessity (I should patent that phrase). As new needs appear new inventions will appear. Some may be complicated and need an R&D group. Some may be simple and be obvious AFTER they have been invented. Barbed wire is an obvious invention that did not need an R & D group to design it.
In many ways I would be inclinded to say that we are in a golden age of the backyard inventor. But things have changed in some ways. We usually associate an invention with subsequent patents and riches. But this isn’t the reason most backyard inventors ever got into inventing. Most do it for the personal satisfaction and often to satisfy another need. Open source programming was mentioned earlier. The entire underpinning of open source is that you don’t make money off it. You contribute, and gain access to other’s contributions and build a vastly greater commons. If you look around the world there are thousands upon thousands of enthusiasts working on all manner of interests. The internet has brought about a staggering increase in the communication between like minded enthusiasts, and a huge increase in their ability to share experiences, designs, and ideas. You can find people designing and building just about anything. In many areas you find a few very skilled people, sometimes professionals, many with access to high end tools, computer programs, and test equipment. They lead groups that include tinkerers, enthusiasts, other very experienced amateurs. You find astonishing things happening. In most areas you see a clear ethos of sharing for the common good, and often outright hostility to the notion of someone patenting, commercialising and getting rich on the back of the work.
This does perhaps lead to a counter-intuitive issue. An invention is only the very start of a product. The effort needed to take a useful invention to commercial product in the modern age is huge. Engineering something to be manufactureable at a reasonable cost, instead of hand made, and then getting all the necessary approvals to be allowed to sell it in most markets (things like RoHS, CE, UL) cost serious money. If the invention isn’t patentable because it has already been publicly disclosed, or has a rather difficult to define provenance, it may be hard to justify the investment to bring it to market without the protection a patent affords. OTOH, many patents are ridiculous, and really should never have been granted.
When one sees the numbers of exhibitors at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva (Switzerland), one has to conclude that “Backyard Inventors” are as active now as ever.
Martini, I think you’re not seeing that many “backyard inventors” not because they aren’t there, but because they operate differently.
In the past, someone would have an idea, he’d build it, and then he’d sell it.
Today, someone has an idea, he’ll found a company to develop the idea, raise money through investors and loans, build it (maybe), and then he’ll sell it - or, more often than not, sell the company.
It’s more complicated than it used to be, but it’s still essentially the same process. If you have an idea for an invention, you can still build it - you just need a business plan to go with it.
It doesn’t make any sense to say you “should copyright (something).” At the moment you write something down (or fix it in another medium), it is either protected by copyright law or it isn’t. There’s nothing more you can do “to copyright it.”
Many people who do either wood or metalworking in a home shop constantly fabricate “jigs” to use with common hand/power tools to assist them in producing good quality and uniform parts quickly and efficiently. Good jig designs may get published in a magazine, or even get produced eventually. The “Pocket Hole Jig” is the most recent one I can think of. Still, it’s not something one can make a lot of money at. The people who would use them are the one’s that would generally rather build it themselves.