Does Your Idea Pass the "Why Didn't I Think of That" Test?

Launching new products is a numbers game. About 650,000 patent and 500,000 trademark applications are processed every year. That’s good for consumers, because more choice is better. And it’s comforting for society, because somebody out there is thinking about progress.

What does that mean if you’re in the technology or consumer products business? How many of those great ideas will see the light of day? How many will have market success and become household necessities? Will any of them become a brand so popular as to have a fan club?

The big guys can absorb some losing ideas. But how about the not-so-big guys---the guys that can’t afford innovations that are doomed to fail?

For a little bit of history, the US Patent Office was founded in about 1790. Benjamin Franklin and George Washington had a hand in it. Thomas Jefferson wrote some of the language of its charter and he believed that, “Only physical, useful inventions should be granted a patent.” By 1840, less than a thousand patents were granted each year, and by 1867 the numbers grew to over 21,000. Abraham Lincoln is the only president to hold one. Some of the other famous patent holders are Otis, Yale, Eastman, and Bell.

By 1899, the legend has it that the Commissioner of the Patent Office sent a letter to President McKinley urging him to close the Patent Office because, “Everything that could be invented has been invented.” Can you imagine what the 20th century would have been like if that were true?

A modern counterpart is Larry Ellison, who in 2001 argued that “There will be no new architecture for computers for the next 1000 years---and for high-tech entrepreneurs, get out of the tech business, it’s too late.”

So is there a future for inventors? Are there breakthrough ideas out there? Yes. Because someone out there will do it. But the world isn’t waiting for most ideas, nor will it beat paths to many doors.

The future of technological progress was foretold in the first message sent over Morse’s telegraph, “What hath God wrought!” Now, “everything made by man under the sun” is eligible for a patent. That is why so many patents are useless and why smaller companies are playing in the bigger, higher risk game. Ray Alderman wrote recently:
“The Patent and Trademark Office will patent most anything, whether it makes sense or not. Companies reward their engineers who apply for and are granted patents, regardless of the validity or applicability of the invention. It’s the publish or perish mantra often heard in academia, but applied to the engineering department. Some patent activity is simply rooted in making a resume look nice”

Alderman continues by saying there are two reasons why people and companies apply for patents. These are to protect a company from patents owned by other companies, and to make money. (And of course there’s always the thrill of creating something new.)

Over 90% of all new products fail. Most are dead on arrival because they have no reason for being. About 10% are possible winners, dependent on timing, resources and marketing skills.