Will your invention succeed?

Innovation and invention are the buzz words of today, and for a good reason. However, around 50% of patent applications every year fail for grant. From the patented innovations only 10% end up in consumer markets. And only few of these make a difference in our lives. Neither patent grant refusals, nor market success rates are accurate enough to reach a conclusion that most inventions are doomed for failure. But, they do indicate - in a qualitative manner - quite a bit of effort and finance are spent for inventions that we do not need, do not become popular, or simply do not work for one reason or another.

Innovating is creative problem solving which leads to the creation of a novel solution. We have been innovating in increasing pace and effort. The increased pace can be explained by awareness and global scale of challenges for which we try to find unique solutions. Some may say that innovation has also become a holy grail by itself, even when it does not solve an existing problem.

Both problem-solving and innovating for the sake of innovating can bring benefit to the society. It might, however, be wise to increase our efficiency and success rate of innovations, given the scale and urgency of the challenges. That is why I believe systematic approach to innovation may help to solve this phenomenon. There are quite a few approaches for systematic and successful innovation. I will try to summarize some important steps.

1. Identifying the right problem/need: Although this can be the first step, does not necessarily happen so. The solution may be found, even without thinking too hard about the problem. But regardless, I suggest you stand still and ask:

• Is the problem valid and common (or is there a chance it becomes common in the future)?

2. Knowing the history: When you come up with an innovation, it can be very useful to learn its technology path. In short, this is about being sure that your idea is novel and applicable.

• Check if your idea - or similar one - was proposed in the past. If so, why did it fail?
• Check if your idea is the next step in technological tree of the existing solutions, or if it has a potential to create another branch.

Innovation maps are what you may need in order to examine the past and existing technology or methods involved in a particular problem.

3. Assessing your idea and your capability: Here is the step where you have to be skeptic to your own idea. Before you love the idea, you have to hate it. I strongly recommend this step.

• Can you make the idea into a reality with existing technology? For example, does it need a new material, methodology, or a new production technique?

Nowadays quite a few inventions involve interdisciplinary approaches, tools and techniques. Try to assess your own capability and knowledge for realization of the invention.

Read more in Linked-in Pulse...