@harryh, Yes, the lack of a larger discussion of the value of patents was indeed missing, but I found that more understandable since it is a larger, bigger, longer, more complicated issue in itself — a book really. But a vital and not-yet-exhausted discussion.

Interesting piece on a super interesting human condition. Makes me think about telepathic communication of Mammals. Humans started out with telepathic “muscles” but were not heavily used due to advances in spoken and body languages. This innate ability had become atrophied as a result. Much like how the little toe shrank away with the invention of the shoe. Much like what the modern toilet invented by Crapper is doing to our hamstrings and digestive ability.

We have very little use for telepathy in the immediate sense, still the muscles exist both individually and as a whole, resulting in ideas floating through the air.

An example of this telepathic ability on a mundane level would include the experience of someone saying something you were about to say or visa versa. Or a child speaking in response to its mother’s thoughts. Like I have witnessed twice now with our own daughter.

With that said, I would say that 99.9% of modern day mysticism is not telepathic at all. Just an expert who can get personal info through careful skill, then repackage it as psychic phenomena.

Begs the question, what is intuition? There seems to be a connection somehow.

With respect and kindness, Mike

I often tell people, “If you have a great idea, act on it right now, because some guy in China thought of it this morning.” I assume the reason is that at any given time, the mass of humans have access to basically the same information and concepts. Much innovation consists of combining these pre-existing concepts, and the cutting edge is that line between “it’s been done” and “what the heck is that?”

Here’s an idea I have, but I don’t know if it’s good or not… some companies are working on compressed-air-powered cars. See for example: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-car.htm

I wonder: would it really be that difficult to retrofit existing fossil-fuel cars with compressed-air engines, or to run existing engines by pumping compressed air into the intake manifolds to drive the pistons?

Also, the linked article says electricity is need to compress the air, but I don’t see why. One might have, say, a windmill to run a compressor by direct mechanical linkage, or even to run the car’s motor in reverse to refill the compressed air tank. Seems to me that the running gear could be almost Mennonite in its simplicity.

The one of the goals of my company, EasterIsland, is to ultimately make the process and knowledge of manufacturing anything so widely available, that you could subvert patents by simply making it yourself.

I also though the lack of discussion on the value of patents in general was quite odd. If ideas are so easy to come up with, and if they are just “in the air” and many people are likely to come up with them simultaneously, then why should we allow an idea to be patented (perhaps for significant financial reward)? Just because his got in hours earlier than Grey, Bell should make millions? This question is clearly worth discussion in the context of Gladwell’s essay.

It’s true: ideas are in the air. But much like the genius behind a successful company is making the right product, the secret sauce behind Myrvold’s endeavor is investing in the right invention. I’d compare it to idea hedging.

It seems like these patent factories don’t really license people to develop their ideas. They lie in wait for someone to develop a real product that uses a similar idea they they sue them for a few billion. Recall RIM, the inventors of the Blackberry email device getting sued recently? This isn’t about innovation. It’s about making profit off of other people’s real innovations.

Patent factories like this are one of the many sicknesses that plague the patent system today.

i’ve been saying the same thing for some time now. it’s called “zeitgeist” — spirit of the times…

and companies sitting around thinking up patents? bill g. started doing that at microsoft years ago. why do you think vista can’t fly?

-bowerbird

This could really be seen as an indictment of the concept of patentable ideas. If the idea creation is not as unique as we like to think, then why do we assign exclusive rights to a concept that the arc of science has made almost a foregone conclusion?

U.G. Krishnamurti said: “Thought is not yours or mine; it is our common inheritance. There is no such thing as your mind and my mind. There is only mind - the totality of all that has been known, felt, and experienced by man, handed from generation to generation. We are all thinking and functioning in that “thought sphere”, just as we all share the same atmosphere for breathing. The thoughts are there to function and communicate in this world sanely and intelligently. […] Where are the thoughts located? They are not in the brain. Thoughts are not manufactured by the brain. It is, rather, that the brain is like an antenna, picking up thoughts on a common wavelenght, a common thought-sphere. All your action, whether thinking of God or beating a child, spring from the same source – thinking.

It really sounds, despite Gladwell’s adulation, and your effort to be fair, as if these people are just upper-class patent trolls.