Invention and Science-Based Industry
The Patent System:
- the Constitution calls for a patent system,
and it was put in place in 1790
- to
get a patent you must prove that an idea is new and provide a
complete description
- once you have a patent no one can
copy your idea for 17 years without your agreement, after that the idea
can be freely copied
- U.S. patent law doesn't require patents to be used (useless patents )
Number of Patents granted annually by the U.S.
Patent Office (
U.S. Patent Activity, 1790-1997 )
1840 |
1860 |
1880 |
1900 |
1920 |
1940 |
1960 |
1980 |
2000
|
477 |
4,412 |
13,712 |
28,139 |
40,819
|
48,385 |
54,867
|
87,206
|
236,364
|
The boom in invention:
- in the late 19th century people started
trying to make their living as inventors
- the problem is it isn't enough to invent a
gadget, you need to fit it into a system and manufacture and market
it. Some inventors were good entrepreneurs, some were not
- what are the steps from idea to new product?
- identify (or create) a need (preferably a
bottleneck whose solution will lead to rapid progress)
- invention--a new way of accomplishing
something
- design/development--making that idea work
on
a reasonable scale at a reasonable cost
- innovation--developing production and
markets
- diffusion--the spread of the new
technology into widespread use
- technology push vs. demand pull
- the role of consumers
Example: Charles Goodyear and the Invention of
Vulcanized Rubber
( source )
- in the early 1830s Charles Goodyear became
obsessed with the idea of improving rubber,
which was not very useful because it
had a sticky surface and it melted at high temperatures and cracked at
low
temperatures
- he found a way of improving the performance
by treating the rubber with acid
- then in 1839 he accidentally dropped a
rubber-sulfur mixture on a hot stove and noticed that under the charred
surface there
was a tough, springy substance
- he then spent years figuring out what
combination of heat, pressure and ingredients worked best--he didn't
have a working
process ready to patent until 1844
- so much for accidental inventions--chance
favors the prepared mind
- he was not able to make money off his
invention--he licenced out his patent to support his efforts to develop
the right product but was not successful and ended up in debtors prison
- rubber tires and rubber condoms were among
the successful early products, but there were all sorts of other
ideas. Goodyear alone: "churned out more than a thousand rubber
inventions, including rubber inkstands, syringes, breast pumps, dolls,
gas bags, air cushions,
windmill sails, wheelbarrow wheels, bellows coverings, horse collars,
imitation buffalo robes, and something he called "baptizing dresses." (source
was a Discovery Online article that is no longer available )
- in 1898 several men started the Goodyear
Company, naming it in honor of the inventor who had died in 1860,
$200,000 in debt
Charles Goodyear experimenting
(source was a Discovery Online article that is no longer available )
Competition by innovation: make your company successful by continuous development and
patenting of new products
Example: Eastman Kodak (
History of Kodak )
- invention of photography: 1839 Daguerreotype,
1855 wet collodian
plate, 1880 gelatin
dry
plate
- George
Eastman started mass production of dry plates in 1880, but other
companies got into the business and it quickly turned
into a price war
- George Eastman wanted to avoid this by
inventing and patenting improvements--he hired a research scientist to
work on product improvements in 1886
- developed roll film in 1885, but
professional photographers didn't buy it
- 1888 started to produce a camera for amateurs
- this turned out to be a great success--he
had invented a new market
Kodak #1 (from a Kodak page no longer available)
Applied science (see
19th
Century Engineering Education )
- science is becoming more useful
- electricity--the battery was invented by
Alessandro Volta in 1800: a scientist who worked out the basic laws of
electric current
- the basic laws of thermodynamics were
worked
out in the first have of the 19th century, as people tried to
understand
how to design better steam engines.
- Second law of thermodynamics (entropy)
laid out by Sadi
Carnot in 1824 in a book analyzing steam engines.
- The first law of thermodymanics
(conservation of energy was stated in the 1840s by Robert
Mayer and Hermann
Helmholtz on the basis of physiology, and by James
Joule (a Manchester brewer and amateur scientist) on the basis of
experiments (he proved the point in 1843 but
had trouble getting it published).
- development of organic chemistry in the
second half of the 19th century--in the 1860s German dyestuff companies
had turned to chemistry professors at the universities for new organic
dyes.
The result was aniline and alizarin dyes--very successful
- scientists were doing more practical research
- sometimes in universities with industry
funding
- particularly in the industrial research
labs
that developed in the early 20th century (next class)
Quote of the day: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If
your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
" - Howard Aiken, IBM
engineer
this page written and copyright Pamela E. Mack
last updated 10/7/05