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Most Innovations are Rephrasings of Past Technology

posted by cmn32480 on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the everything-old-is-new-again dept.

AnonTechie writes in with an article from phys.org:

Most new patents are combinations of existing ideas and pretty much always have been, even as the stream of fundamentally new core technologies has slowed, according to a new paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface by SFI researchers Hyejin Youn, Luis Bettencourt, Jose Lobo, and Deborah Strumsky.

Youn and colleagues reached those conclusions sifting through the records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Dating back to 1790, the records feature an elaborate system of technology codes—a vocabulary of sorts, in which any new invention is a phrase.

The researchers found that throughout the USPTO's history, about 40 percent of patents have been refinements on existing patents that leave the "phrase" unchanged. The rest are either new words or new phrases—and the balance between those has changed. "Suppose you write a long novel. You may emphasize the introduction of new vocabularies or the introduction of new phrases," says Youn.

[Abstract]: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v11/n1/full/nphys3222.html

[Source]: http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/youn-language-patents/

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:10AM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:10AM (#177759) Journal

    We've known this for a while now:
    Old Idea + Computers = New Patent
    Old Idea + Internet = New Patent

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 02 2015, @01:30PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday May 02 2015, @01:30PM (#177860) Journal

    Old idea + New patent = New new patent! ;-)

    New patent = new opportunities to SUE.... ;)
    (Any list of publically traded lawyer firms?)