Video Transcript

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Hey there, it’s Gary Schuster with Innovation Cafe, and today I want to talk with you about the difference between an idea and an invention. They sound like the same thing — Edison was full of good ideas and he was a great inventor — but they’re not the same thing, because you can patent an invention. You cannot patent an idea.

So an invention is something that usually has its genesis in an idea. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” But you take it further. You build something, you come up with a method of doing something. You actually take the idea and you make it concrete. And when you file your patent application, you define exactly what the invention is. You describe how to do it. You are teaching other people how to do it. And by the way, weirdest thing — when you see your own name in someone else’s patent rejection saying, “Well, Schuster teaches this, so you don’t get your patent.” Kind of cool.

Anyhow, that’s the difference between an idea and an invention. Until next time!