There are many kinds of invention. The poet, the artist, the
playwright, the novelist all exercise or may exercise invention in the
production of their works. The merchant may exercise invention in the
devising of a new method of selling goods. The department store was an
invention of this class.
The subject of my paper is, however, the art of making technical
inventions, and particularly patentable inventions. And, first, of
its commercial importance; for the engineer is concerned with things
having a commercial value. By the art of inventing, wealth is created
absolutely out of ideas alone. It usually takes capital to develop an
invention and make it productive, but not always. A notable recent
example is Professor Pupin's loaded telephone line. He received a
very large sum of money, and his expenditures, as I understand, were
comparatively trivial.
The certificate of ownership of an invention is a patent, and the
importance of the art of invention will be made apparent from a brief
consideration of what rights a patent confers and of the part that
patents play in the industries.
A patent is the most perfect form of monopoly recognized by the law. As
was said in a recent decision:
"Within his domain, the patentee is czar. The people must
take the invention on the terms he dictates or let it alone
for seventeen years. This is a necessity from the nature of
the grant. Cries of restraint of trade and impairment of the
freedom of sales are unavailing, because for the promotion of
the useful arts the constitution and statutes authorize this
very monopoly."
There is an enormous amount of wealth in this country that is based
upon patents. As an instance, might be mentioned the fact that the
United Shoe Machinery Company is, by means of patents, able to control
the sewing machines upon which ninety per cent. of the welt shoes
in the United States are sewed. The Bell Telephone Company, and the
Westinghouse Air Brake Company and many other corporations of the first
importance built themselves up on patents. Patents have become so well
recognized a factor in commerce that, in many lines of manufacture,
concerns do not depend simply upon cheapness of manufacture, or
quality of product, to maintain their trade, but they count on always
having a product which is at least slightly better than that of their
competitors, and which is covered by patents, so that they do not have
to compete with an article of equal merit. And they keep a corps of
inventors at work in a constant effort to improve the product, so that,
when the patents now giving protection have expired, they will have a
better article to offer, which shall also be protected by patents.
Inventing has become almost a recognized profession. Many large
concerns constantly employ a large corps of inventors, at liberal
salaries. Besides the inventors employed by large corporations, there
are many inventors who have maintained their independence, and are free
lances, so to speak. Some inventors have become wealthy almost solely
by their inventions, such as Edison, Bell, Westinghouse, Marconi,
Pupin, Tesla, and Sprague. A considerable number of the smaller
manufacturing concerns are built largely or wholly upon the inventions
of their principal owners.
Aside from the question of financial returns from inventing, the
inventor has the satisfaction of knowing that he is a producer of
the most fundamental kind. All material progress has involved the
production of inventions. Inventors are universally conceded to be
among the greatest benefactors of the human race.
The art of invention is therefore one of great commercial and
economical importance, and it becomes a matter of much interest to know
how inventions are produced. It is my object to attempt an explanation
of the manner of their production.
If it be inquired on what grounds I offer an explanation of this
apparently most difficult subject, I reply that, in the practice of
patent law, I have often had occasion and opportunity to inquire into
the mental processes of inventors, and that the subject is one to which
I have given considerable attention.
It seems to be popularly believed that the inventor must be born to his
work, and that such people are born only occasionally. This is true,
to a certain extent, but I am convinced there are many people who,
without suspecting it, have latent inventive abilities, which could be
put to work if they only knew how to go about it. The large percentage
of inventors in this country compared with all other countries, shows
that the inventive faculty is one which can be cultivated to some
extent. The difference in ingenuity is not wholly a matter of race,
for substantially the same blood exists in some other countries, but
it is the encouragement of our patent laws that has stimulated the
cultivation of this faculty.
The popular idea seems to be that an invention is produced by its
inventor at a single effort of the imagination and complete, as Minerva
sprang full grown and fully armed from the mind of Jove.
It is, undoubtedly, true that every inventor must have some imagination
or creative faculty, but, as I shall seek to show, this faculty may
be greatly assisted by method. While reasoning does not constitute
the whole of an inventive act, it can, so to speak, clear the way and
render the inventive act easier of accomplishment.
Invention has been defined as "In the nature of a guess; the mind
leaps across a logical chasm. Instead of working out a conclusion, it
imagines it." The courts have repeatedly held that that which could be
produced _purely_ by the process of reasoning or inference, on the part
of one ordinarily skilled in the art is not patentable, but that the
imaginative or creative faculty must somewhere be used in the process.
The mind must somewhere leap from the known to the unknown by means of
the imagination, and not by mere inference in making the invention. But
the inventor, consciously or unconsciously, by proper method, reduces
the length of this leap to much more moderate proportions than is
popularly supposed.
That reasoning and research frequently enter very largely into the
inventive act in aid of the creative faculty is the opinion of Dr.
Trowbridge, of Columbia University who said:
"Important inventions leading to widespread improvements
in the arts or to new industries do not come by chance, or
as sudden inspiration, but are in almost every instance
the result of long and exhaustive researches by men whose
thorough familiarity with their subjects enables them to see
clearly the way to improvements. Almost all important and
successful inventions which have found their way into general
use and acceptance have been the products of well-balanced and
thoughtful minds, capable of patient laborious investigation."
Judge Drummond, in a decision many years ago, said:
"Most inventions are the result of experiment, trial, and
effort, and few of them are worked out by mere will."
Most inventions are an evolution from some previously invented form. It
has been said:
"We know exactly how the human mind works. The unknown--or
unknowable--it always conceives in terms of the known."
Even the imagination conceives in terms of what is already known; that
is, the product of the imagination is a transformation of material
already possessed. Imagination is the association in new relations of
ideas already possessed by the mind. It is impossible to imagine that,
the elements of which are not already known to us. We cannot conceive
of a color which does not consist of a blending of one or more colors
with which we are already familiar. This evolution of an invention is
more or less logical, and is often worked out by logical processes to
such an extent that the steps or efforts of imagination are greatly
reduced as compared with the effort of producing the invention solely
by the imagination.
Edison is quoted as having said that "any man can become an inventor
if he has imagination and pertinacity," that "invention is not so much
inspiration as perspiration."