The colored inventor : a record of fifty years /

Cover title.

Thomas Alva Edison, miracle maker.

A biography of the inventor who patented more than 1,100 inventions in 60 years, among them the electric light and the phonograph.

Eli Whitney, great inventor.

Mode of access: Internet.

Alexander Graham Bell, man of sound.

A biography of the scientist and educator who invented the telephone.

Samuel F. B. Morse, artist-inventor.

Mode of access: Internet.

Men of invention and industry /

Phineas Pett, beginnings of English shipbuilding.--Francis Pettit Smith, practical introducer of the screw propeller.--John Harrison, inventor of the marine chronometer.--John Lombe, introducer of the silk industry into England.--William Murdock, his life and inventions.--Frederick Koenig, inventor of the steam-printing machine.--The Walters of the 'Times', invention of the Walter press.--William Clowes, book-printing by steam.--Charles Bianconi, a lesson of self-help in Ireland.--Industry in Ireland, through Connaught and Ulster to Belfast.--Harland, E. J. Ship-building in Belfast.--Astronomers and students in humble life, a new chapter in the 'Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties'.

The book of illustrious mechanics, of Europe and America.

Mode of access: Internet.

The creators of the age of steel.

Introduction. - Sir Henry Bessemer. - Sir William Siemens. - Sir Joseph Whitworth. - Sir John Brown. - Mr. S.G. Thomas. - Mr. G.J. Snelus.

Erfinder und Erfindungen /

Mode of access: Internet.

Extra compensation for inventive employees:is our system equitable, unbiased and motivating?

There is a presumption that invention is good. It provides us with innovative goods, services and ways of doing things leading to greater employment, wealth and health. This article looks at the two recent UK cases regarding statutory extra compensation that may be awarded to employee inventors under the Patents Act 1977. Most universities worldwide and many companies have individual inventor reward schemes. Researchers now work in teams made up of both industry and academic researchers who are often based in different countries where different legal regimes apply. Is leaving the decision to award employees extra financial compensation up to individual companies unfair, unequal and de-motivating? Is having differing legislative systems in different European countries counter productive and a barrier to economic growth? There must be a balance between the inventor and the innovator. Do we have it right and if not what should it be? Legislation: Patents Act 1977 s.39 , s.40 , s.41 Cases: Kelly v GE Healthcare Ltd [2009] EWHC 181 (Pat); [2009] R.P.C. 12 (Ch D (Patents Ct)) Shanks v Unilever Plc [2010] EWCA Civ 1283; [2011] R.P.C. 12 (CA (Civ Div))

The Life Cycle of Corporate Venture Capital

This paper establishes the life-cycle dynamics of Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) to explore the information acquisition role of CVC investment in the process of corporate innovation. I exploit an identification strategy that allows me to isolate exogenous shocks to a firm's ability to innovate. Using this strategy, I first find that the CVC life cycle typically begins following a period of deteriorated corporate innovation and increasingly valuable external information, lending support to the hypothesis that firms conduct CVC investment to acquire information and innovation knowledge from startups. Building on this analysis, I show that CVCs acquire information by investing in companies with similar technological focus but have a different knowledge base. Following CVC investment, parent firms internalize the newly acquired knowledge into internal R&D and external acquisition decisions. Human capital renewal, such as hiring inventors who can integrate new innovation knowledge, is integral in this step. The CVC life cycle lasts about four years, terminating as innovation in the parent firm rebounds. These findings shed new light on discussions about firm boundaries, managing innovation, and corporate information choices.

Do Individuals or Firms Matter More? The Case of Patent Generation

This paper studies the relative importance of individual inventors’ human capital and firms’ organizational capital in promoting a firm’s innovation output. We decompose the variation in innovation output into inventor- and firm-specific components. Inventors’ human capital is about 13 times as important as firms’ organizational capital in explaining a firm’s innovation performance in terms of patent counts and citations, while inventors’ human capital is only about the same as important when explaining the firm’s innovation styles in terms of patent exploratory and exploitive scores. In the cross section, inventors contribute more to innovation output when they are better networked, in firms with higher inventor mobility, in industries in which innovation is more difficult to achieve, and in publicly traded firms. Additional tests suggest that our main findings continue to hold after accounting for inventors’ endogenous moving. This paper highlights the importance of individual inventors in enhancing firm innovation and sheds new light on the theory of the firm.

Analysis of the "Sonar Hopf" Cochlea

The "Sonar Hopf" cochlea is a recently much advertised engineering design of an auditory sensor. We analyze this approach based on a recent description by its inventors Hamilton, Tapson, Rapson, Jin, and van Schaik, in which they exhibit the "Sonar Hopf" model, its analysis and the corresponding hardware in detail. We identify problems in the theoretical formulation of the model and critically examine the claimed coherence between the described model, the measurements from the implemented hardware, and biological data.

Invención e innovación tecnológica en el ciclismo en España a través de la documentación de patentes : 1826-1929

El objetivo general de esta investigación consiste en sacar a la luz un conjunto de documentos, los documentos de patentes presentadas en España, sobre un tema concreto, la bicicleta y el ciclismo, y durante un periodo determinado, 1826-1929, presentes en la Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (OEPM), organizando esta documentación para su posterior utilización por la comunidad científica. Para ello se han identificado y sistematizado las patentes referidas a la bicicleta, presentadas entre 1826 y 1929, realizando tablas de frecuencia que permitan extraer datos de su incidencia en la invención en el periodo considerado. Ello ha permitido conocer una serie de datos de los inventores, que, en definitiva son los creadores del desarrollo tecnológico en este campo, extrayendo, ordenando y categorizando la información sobre lugar de origen, tipo de inventor (empresa o particular), sexo, práctica de colaboración y profesión. Finalmente se ha estudiado el tipo de inventos, mostrando los sectores en los que se producen las invenciones, identificando si se han puesto en práctica, y determinando aspectos tales como su carácter de invención incremental, su posible consideración como invento raro y curioso, y su coexistencia con una marca registrada. El trabajo se inicia con la introducción seguida de un apartado en el que se presenta el marco teórico en el que se desarrolla la investigación, en una doble vía: en primer lugar el contexto de los documentos de patente, su relación con la innovación y su utilidad como fuentes de información, y en segundo lugar el marco de la invención en el ciclismo, presentando las fases esenciales de la evolución de la bicicleta (capítulo 2). En el marco metodológico (capítulo 3) se explican fuentes y metodología, presentando a continuación el diseño de la investigación, que se resume como sigue: 1- Determinación del universo de datos, 2- Consulta en el Archivo Histórico de la OEPM, 3- Diseño y creación de la base de datos propia, 4- Consulta de los expedientes y toma de imágenes, 5- Tratamiento y análisis de los datos, 6- Búsqueda de información en fuentes para patentes extranjeras, y 7- Consulta a la base de datos de Marcas de la OEPM. El capítulo 4 está dedicado a la investigación propiamente dicha, estructurado en tres grandes bloques. El primero recoge las cuantificaciones tabuladas del total de patentes y el análisis de determinados aspectos generales como la cronología de la invención y diversas comparaciones con resultados obtenidos en otros trabajos. El segundo bloque está centrado en los estudios de solicitantes de patentes, protagonistas de las invenciones. De ellos se contemplan una serie de datos extraídos de los expedientes, y posteriormente tabulados y cuantificados: su procedencia geográfica, su adscripción como empresas o solicitantes particulares, y sus datos de colaboración, finalizando el bloque con un apartado que dedicamos a la innovación femenina, que consideramos una línea de investigación interés. El tercer bloque, el más amplio de todos, está dedicado a la descripción y análisis de los datos referidos a los propios inventos, puesto que es la aplicación de los inventos lo que marca el desarrollo tecnológico de la máquina bicicleta, y su consiguiente evolución histórica y social. Se estructura asimismo en varias secciones. La primera es la más amplia, donde se muestran y explican los datos que tienen que ver con la adscripción de los inventos a sectores temáticos, es decir, que desarrolla las funciones o componentes de la bicicleta que han sido objeto de invención. Los apartados siguientes muestran datos y consideraciones sobre las patentes puestas en práctica, las invenciones incrementales, los inventos curiosos, y las patentes con posible marca registrada de su nombre. Finalmente, las conclusiones del estudio, el establecimiento de posibles líneas abiertas de investigación, la relación de fuentes consultadas y los anexos cerrarán la exposición de esta tesis. ABSTRACT The main goal of this research thesis is to shed light on a specific documentary record: patents presented in Spain, regarding a specific theme: bicycles and cycling, within a given period: 1826-1929. This record is organized for the ulterior use by the scientific community. In order to carry out this goal, the mentioned patents have been identified and systematized, and analyzed for frequency in order to infer the incidence of its invention in the period under consideration. This has brought to light some information on the inventors which are, after all, the creators in the technological development of that field. Their bibliographical information: origin, type of inventor (company or individual), gender, collaboration behavior and profession. Finally, the type of inventions has been studied, showing the sectors in which inventions are produced, whether these were transferred to practice, and other key information like the incremental nature of their invention, their possible consideration as ‘rare or curious invention’, and their coexistence with a registered trademark. This thesis is organized with an initial introduction, after which a section outlines the theoretical framework for the research along two axes: first the context of the patent documents, their relation with innovation and their usefulness as information sources; second, the invention of cycling and the development phases of bicycles. In the methodological section the sources and methodology are explained and reasoned, followed by the research design: 1-determination of the data universe, 2-consultation at the historical archive of the OEPM (National Patent Office), 3-design and creation of a database, 3-analysis of the files and image catchment, 5-treatment and analysis of data, 6-browsing of source information for foreign patents, and 7-consultation of the trademark information at the OEPM. Chapter 4 is dedicated to research itself, in three main sections. The first one has the quantification of the patent total in tables and the analysis of specific overall chronological aspects of the invention, and some comparisons with the results obtained in other research. The second section is centered on the studies of patent requests and inventors. Some data extracted from the files has been systematized: geographical origin, adscriptions as companies or individuals, and their collaboration data, ending with a sub-section on women’s invention, which we consider an interesting research line. The third section, the biggest one of them all, is dedicated to the description and analysis of the data referred to the inventions themselves, because it is the application of the inventions which constitutes the technological development of the bicycle, and therefore its historical and social evolution. It is also structured in various sub-sections. The first one is the longest one, with information regarding the thematic typology of the inventions: functions and bicycle components which are innovated. The other ensuing subsections study patents which were actually incorporated and used, incremental inventions, curious inventions and patents with possible associated trademarks. Finally, the study conclusions, the establishment of lines of potential further research, the references used, and the annexes which culminate the thesis exposition.