(115a) Using the Brains of Others to Accelerate Innovation

Many times when we are trying to innovate, we take the position that what we are trying to do is something that has never been done before. When we are trying to discover totally new science or engineering principles, this may be true, but in the normal realm of commercial innovation, this is seldom true. We often use fancy words, jargon, and acronyms to make us think our problems are special and unique. We even use these special words and phrases in web searches for solutions to the problems we have.

When we actually look at the inventive patent literature, we find a limited number of inventive principles that we constantly reuse and rediscover. This presentation will review a number of breakthrough innovation efforts in several manufacturing and engineering areas and their relationship to existing technology efforts that were overlooked and could have saved significant time and money in the innovation process.