Inventing Solutions - Essay Example

Name Course Tutor Date Inventing solutions Introduction A patent is a property right that is granted to an inventor by the government. This ownership right is granted to exclude other people from making or using, or even selling the invention without the permission. In other terms, the inventor is protected so that he can enjoy and benefit from his unique contributions. Thomas Edison is recognized very much world-wide for his contribution to various scientific inventions which helped in transforming the information technology. His inventions laid the foundation of the current technology this present day generation is enjoying. Some of his various inventions include a phonograph, kinetoscope, Dictaphone incandescent light bulb carbon microphone and many more (Katznelson & Howells, 9). History reveals that Edison invented a minor invention every ten days and a major invention in every six months. This made him to be the world most prolific inventor, and his records stood throughout 20th century (McClure, 8). He earned 1,093 US patents rights which included both utility patents (patents for inventions) and artistic design patents. His most famous patents included U.S patent 0,090,646 for electro-graphic vote-recorder which was his first patent, the second patent was U.S patent 0,091,527 for printing telegraph, 0,096,567 for printing telegraph apparatus, U.S patent , 0,096, 681 for automatic electrical switch for telegraph , patent 0,103, 035 for electro-motor escarpments (Katznelson & Howells, 9). Most of these first patents deal with telegraph system (McClure, 8). Edison’s electro-vote recording machine was invented to speed up the voting process. He devised a system that would record a “yes” or a “no” (McClure, 16). Each voter was supposed to press the lever, and his/her vote was recorded on a strip of paper. Unfortunately, the congress was not interested in the machines since they used the roll-call vote as an opportunity to state their opinions. However, other arguments leveled against this machine were that the machines were vulnerable to vote rigging and raised insecurity concerns (Katznelson & Howells, 10). Therefore, Edison concentrated on other things when the congress rejected his machine. Thus, political forces rendered this new invention to be abandoned rather than improving the weak areas. The US constitution article 1, section 8 provides that the congress has the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts for securing limited times to authors and inventors exclusive rights to their respective discoveries (Spahn, 1). Edison faced a legal case in 1885 where Judge William Wallace favored him in his judgment. This case was referred to as Edison Elec. Light Co. Vs. United States Elec. Lighting Co, 47 F. 454 (SDNY 1891) (Katznelson & Howells, 11). In this case, the plaintiff who was the United States Electric lighting Company filed a case in court against Edison. They argued that whereas Edison’s ‘898 patent proved to be a fundamental incandescent lamp patent, its characterization as the use of carbon filament as a source of light was overboard and patently wrong. This is because Edison’s claim was significantly narrower than that (Katznelson & Howells, 11). They denied the idea that Edison was the inventor of the light bulb. They argued that light bulb was invented earlier and, therefore; Edison should not have been given the patent right for the light bulb. However, as discussed earlier, the court ruled in favor of Edison stating that the plaintiff did not give enough proof in their case. It is hard to publish a patent than a journal paper. This is because patent may only be applicable in research related chemical sciences, physical science and biological sciences. However, a patent related to social sciences cannot be published (Katznelson & Howells, 11). Therefore, a journal can be related to both social sciences and the other mentioned sections of sciences. Hence, it makes it easier to publish a journal article than a patent. Moreover, filing a patent involves a lot of work; it costs a lot of money whereas submitting a journal paper costs nothing (Spahn, 1). Filing a successful patent required very specific formal language which is different from the normal language used in filing the journal paper. Thus, publishing of the journal article is easier as compared to the publishing the patent. The time taken and the cost involved in publishing a patent are high as compared to that of the journal article. A patent in most cases takes three to five years for it to be published while a journal article takes only three months. However, the commercial value of a patent after going through all this process and taking all this time are higher in the long run (Katznelson & Howells, 11).The income of the owner of the published patent is higher in the long run that the income of the owner of a journal article (Tagliaferro, 34) To compete effectively, the author of the journal articles must come up with highly valued articles so that he can sell them to many readers for him to match the patent owner. Thomas Edison was an American inventor and a businessman born in 1847 and died in 1931 at the age of 84 years. He was born in Milan in Ohio and later grew up in Michigan. Edison was partially deaf because he suffered from a certain disease during his childhood that left him deaf (McClure, 3). Edison did not have good academic background since he dropped out of school at his early age. However, his inventions came as results of his aggressiveness and adventurous nature when he worked as a telegraph operator on the grand trunk railway. He married his first wife Mary in 1871 and they had three children, unfortunately, his wife died early in 1884. He later remarried another wife Mina in 1886 and also had with her three children. Edison began his career of invention in Newark in New Jersey (Spahn, 1). His first invention that captured the interest of people was the invention of the phonograph in 1877. This invention marveled the society and in fact, he was nicknamed “The wizard of Menlo park. “(McClure, 11). He later on invented so many things and most o them were related to the telegraph. He received so many patent rights from the US government and international countries and companies. In addition to his invention career, he was a prominent business man. He on so many titles and honors including Matteucci medal in 1890, Edward Longstreth Medal in 1899, John Fritz Medal in 1908 and many more (Katznelson & Howells, 11). Edison was an advocate for monetary reforms in the United States; he was against the gold standard and debt-based money. Edison died of diabetes complications in 1931 at the ripe age of 84 years. Edison owned a laboratory in Menlo Park. He was assisted by the government to build this laboratory after his first invention of the phonograph. The invention enabled him to sell a number of them to companies and he got some good income that helped him to build and equip the laboratory (McClure, 8). Edison’s direct current DC invention failed because the DC required the use of large and costly distribution wires a fact that forced generating plants to be nearer to the loads (Tagliaferro, 7). With the development of the transformer, the generating plants shifted to AC technology because AC could be sent to longer distances at a high voltage and needed thinner wires that were less costly. Therefore, the alternating current AC generating stations should be cheaper to operate and larger in size (lbl.gov, 1). Therefore, Edison’s DC inventions were abandoned, and firms resorted to AC appliances. Therefore, Tesla’s AC technology defeated. Edison’s DC technology since most plants and firms found AC to be more convenient and less costly as compared to DC (Tagliaferro, 23). Creating a patented intentioned seems to be hard but I have the desire of doing it because it has more commercial value. However, the rules and regulations that govern these issues of patenting and rights to the intellectual property seem to be complicated and can take me considerable lengths of time to come up with a patented property. Works Cited Aquino, J & Sterbenz, C. “15 Inventions from Thomas Edison that changed the world”. (2014) Accessed 29 October 2014. Collier, S. “Was Edison right after all? Reconsidering DC power.” (2013). Accessed 29 October 2014. Katznelson, R & Howells, J. Inventing-around Edison’s incandescent lamp patent: evidence of patent’s role in stimulating downstream development. (2012). Accessed 29 October 2014. McClure, J. “Edison and his inventions.” (2009). University of Michigan; Rhodes and McClure publishing company Spahn, E. “Lighting a revolution: Lamp inventors 1880-1940: Carbon filament incandescent.” (2014). Accessed 29 October 2014 Tagliaferro, L. “Thomas Edison: Inventor of the age of electricity.” (2003). New York; Twenty- first-century books. Read More