Dr. Tal Lavianhttp://cs.berkeley.edu/~tlavian

tlavian@cs.berkeley.eduUC Berkeley Engineering, CET

Invention and Innovation

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“Many people dream of success. To me, success can only be achieved

through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success

represents the one percent of your work which results only from the ninety-nine percent that is called

failure.

-Soichiro Honda, founder, Honda Motors

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Fail your way to Success

Who invents?

In a given company, ~1% of employees produce 99% of patents.

Thus, individuals who have mastered the skill of inventing and patenting are incredibly valuable!

How can we become inventors?How can we produce inventions as employees?How can we encourage inventions as business

owners?

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Typical Barriers to Innovation

There is no shared understanding of what innovation means

Little consensus for roles and responsibilities around innovation

Task versus system orientationLong term IT contracts often focus on SLA’s,

not innovation

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Typical Barriers to Innovation

Volume-based revenue streams view innovation as counter growth

Management incentives depend on current unit contribution, not long-term

Main street financial metrics (revenue growth and earnings) make entrepreneurship difficult

Sales-driven market development strategy

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Typical Barriers to Innovation

Failure to recognize innovation “as a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practiced”: No systematic scanning for changes No systematic analysis and exploitation of opportunities No systematic commercialization of innovation

Sales pipeline determines portfolio (market has to exist already) Rely on others to create new markets

Lack of investment dollars for innovationInnovator’s dilemma: new things look too small

compared to existing business

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Cultural Challenges

There are significant cultural challenges:

• Between the researchers, inventors and entrepreneurs

• Between all of the above and investors and owners

• And these relationships change over time

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The Myths of Innovation

By Scott Berkun

Describes the methodology of realizing the potential of modern ideas.

Ideas never stand aloneIdeas without implementation are not inventionsThe goodness of the invention is always counter-

balanced by the ease of its adoptionInventing and implementing always require hard,

consistent work.

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Stages of Innovation Diffusion

We distinguish among:

Early adopters: More educated, innovative individuals who gain from technology.

Followers: The majority of adopters who see its success and want to join in.

Laggards: Less-advanced individuals who either do not adopt or adopt very late and may lose because of the technology.

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Factors Affecting Invention Diffusion

Heterogeneity of potential adopters (size, location, land quality, and human capital).

The individual decision process aimed at improving well-being (profitability, well-being, risk minimization).

Dynamic forces that make technology more attractive (learning by doing, learning by using, network benefits).

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And Suddenly, the Inventor Appeared

By Genrich Altshuller (TRIZ method)

Suggests methods of thinking that can resolve many technical contradictions:

Do it inversely Change the state or physical property Do it in advance If it cannot be done completely, do it partially Fragment and/or consolidate

TRIZ focuses on physical and chemical solutions

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Elements of Invention

Technical solution to a problemNewDistinct from known solutionsProduce useful effect

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How to invent?

Consider a problem worth solving Ex: gooey candy melts at high temperatures. How to

dip in warm melted chocolate to form chocolate covered candy?

Identify physical/technical contradictionResolve them without creating new

contradictions! One solution can be to separate conflicting

requirements using time or space. Ex: first freeze the candy center. Dip into chocolate.

Store at room temp to defrost center.

Source: And Suddenly, the Inventor Appeared, by Gentrich Altshuller

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Discovery Inventions14

Mental Process and Real World TestingThe Scientific Method

What is the Problem? Hypothesis Methods of observation Experimental methods Obtain results Interpret results: hypothesis testing Revise hypothesis Modify study design Reiterate

How to Identify the Real Problem

Rewrite the problem in 10 different waysList causes of the problemLook at what is influencing the product Redefine the problem in order to come up

with different, innovative solutions “service is too slow” vs. “customers are too

demanding”

Set innovation goalposts that have a variety of solutions to your problem between them

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Most inventions improve existing systems

How to improve a perfectly functional mechanism? The 4 “periods” of technological improvement

1. Selection of parts for the system. (Make it work)2. Improvements of parts. (Make it work

faster/cheaper/smaller)3. Dynamization of the system. (Make it

dynamic/adaptable/mobile and moveable)4. Self-development of the system. (Make it self-adaptive)

Source: And Suddenly, the Inventor Appeared, by Gentrich Altshuller

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Improve without impairing!

Inventors improve a single part or characteristic of the system without impairing other parts or characteristics of the system or adjacent systems

Source: And Suddenly, the Inventor Appeared, by Gentrich Altshuller

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Improvements from organizational perspective

• Cost leadership path• Separating the organization from others by

providing the lowest cost option

• Product/Service differentiation path• provide the most unique products/services

available • can be achieved by marketing unique products, branding

these products, or holding a specialized patent

• Customer segmentation path• Being the only organization to target a unique

customer segment within a market

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• Superior process path• Offering the fastest, highest quality, or most desired

customer service in the marketplace

• Superior distribution path• Offering the customer a preferred distribution and

delivery option

Improvements from organizational perspective

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How to Decide upon Future Destination

• Identify key factors to the success/failure of your organization in the marketplace.

• Identify how to take advantage of future marketplaces, trends, and key success factors.

• Change your view of the customer, product line, service level, etc.

• Find new options by asking extreme questions. • What if the customer does not need us anymore?

• Determine what you want your organization to be famous for.

• Define the organization’s future in a meaningful way.

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How to Uncover Insights

Customer needs- select the customer group of your interest and list their needs/problems and how you want to solve those needs/problems

Emerging technology- figure out how emerging technology can be advantageous to your customer base

The marketplace- figure out how your industry is changing/growing

Your organizational needs- find out what your organization would need to fill the customer needs with the new technology and changing marketplace

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Successful Business Thought Process

yesterday’s problem today’s solution tomorrow’s problem near-future solution future problem future solution…

Tomorrow’s problems can be predicted from the present situation.

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Considering Trends

Fad- short term mania for a product/service that quickly dies off; good for quick cash

Shift- easier to see and predict that Fads. Last longer. Change in direction (shifting from television to internet as source of entertainment)

Leap- dramatic change in direction. Giant step towards future. Hard to predict (like Human genome product)

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How to See the BIG Picture as an Employee

The BIG idea must be simple The simpler it is the easier for customers to understand it

Idea must be “new and better” Needs to have a quality that is important enough to be a

selling point to clientsIdea must be proven to manager and potential

customers Even if it is a new idea some parts of it will have existed before

in some industryIdea must be quickly and easily implemented to the

existing system

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How an Individual can Achieve Systems Thinking

Look at how your task is related to part of a bigger process

Figure out how your project is related to the organization in which you work

Look at how your work relates to the market place How will it affect your company’s other products

in the marketplace? How will competitors react?

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Where do ideas come from?

Over 60% of inventors get their ideas from:BrainstormingCollaborationExperimentationThe study of other fieldsJournaling (writing down their thoughts)

Source: The Myth of Innovation, by Scott Berkun

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Seven Sources of Innovation

• “The unexpected —the unexpected success, the unexpected failure, the unexpected outside event;

• The incongruity —between reality as it actually is and reality as it is perceived to be or as it ‘ought to be’;

• Innovation based on process need;

• Changes in industry or market structure that catch everyone unawares...

• Demographics (population changes);

• Changes in perception, mood, and meaning;

• New knowledge, both scientific and nonscientific.”Peter Drucker: Innovation and Entrepreneurship

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Deciding Which Ideas to Pursue

Identifying the real problem is important in finding the real, lasting solution to the problem.

Questions to ask from a business perspective: Is there a customer need? Is it feasible? Can we generate significant revenues and profits

from this? Does it play to our strengths? What technical challenges would we face to do this in

the real world?

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How to Sell your idea

Understand your audience- there are four different type of people 1. cares about the numbers 2. cares about the tasks 3. cares about the people 4. cares about the BIG-picture strategy

Distinguish between adults and kids Adults care about the product’s features first and

brand second Kids care about branding first and features

second (kids wants what’s cool)

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How to Sell your idea Cont.

Understand that everyone goes through multiple phases before buying an idea/product

Prepare a prototype- this will help your ptential buyers fully understand your idea

Presentation- keep it simple Don’t overload the buyers with facts Limit your use of jargon

Create a demand for your idea as a solution to a problem Sell the problem so that the buyer will WANT the

solution

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How to Sell your idea cont.

BE passionateConnect with your potential idea-buyers

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Assessing Value – Influential Factors

Likelihood of third parties using the solution (now or in the future)

Demand for the solution (cost reduction and/or new feature)

Whether “base invention” patented (fundamental v. improvement)

Key enabling/lynchpin solutionWhether the invention is of general

applicabilityWhether the invention is useful to a key

competitor

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Assessing Value – Influential Factors (cont)

Breadth of the solution (available alternatives)

Likelihood of solution being an essential feature of an industry standard

Whether infringement is detectableWhether invention outside core industrySimplicity of solutionImportance of innovation to future company

products and/or services

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Technical Documentation of Inventions

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Conception: “Formation in the mind of an inventor of a permanent

embodiment of an operative invention.”

Invention Creative Inventions

• E.g., a space ship, computer software design, new pencil, etc.

Discovery Inventions• Asking questions of the real world and getting answers• Design an experiment

Technical Documentation of Inventions

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Actual Reduction to practice (for Inventorship, Novelty and Non-Obviousness) E.g., build it, clone it, sequence it, express it, test it

For “self-enabling” inventions, draw it. E.g., a pipettor, a gene chip, a bioinformatics program, new

chemical structure. If you can draw it, you can make it. Do the Experiment

Test the hypothesis; provide “working example:” “A did B” (strong)

Interpret the results Eliminate confounders in the experiment (stronger)

• Negative controls• Positive controls• Calibrate the study methods, reproduce results

Generalize the discovery to other areas Provide a variety of working examples (still stronger)

Technical Documentation of Inventions

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Constructive Reduction to Practice (Filing date) (For Novelty, Prior Art and Inventorship)

File a patent application Description

State of the filed before the invention Contribution embodied by the invention

Prophetic examples “A does B” If it is not apparent that A does B and there is no

proof, then this is merely a “place holder”. “Prove up” the invention later (CIP, Declarations showing actual results)

Teach others to make and use Don’t keep the “best mode” secret

Claims Metes and bounds of the “property right”

Technical Advice on Scope37

Is the invention complete? Theory may be incorrect or subject to revision Methods may have problems (reproducibility, accuracy) Results may be inconclusive (e.g., scattered data) Conclusions may not be fully justified (wishful thinking?)

Scope of invention is hard to ascertain in advance More study is always needed in other/related areas

E.g., breast cancer, prostate cancer, adenocarcinomas, etc. Revise hypotheses or theories

Broaden based on mechanism?

“Equivalents” are hard to ascertain Infringement under the Doctrine of Equivalents:

Function, way, result

HOW TO KILL A CREATIVE IDEA38

Adapted from Measurable Performance Systems, Inc.

Our own self-criticism is often so strong that many novel and unusual ideas never even reach our conscious awareness.

1. Don't be ridiculous. 2. We tried that before. 3. It costs too much. 4. That's beyond our responsibility. 5. It's too radical a change. 6. We don't have time. 7. We're too small for it. 8. That will make other equipment obsolete. 9. Not practical for operating people.10. Our competitors are not doing it11. We've never done it before.

12. Let’s get back to reality.13. That’s not our problem.14. Why change it, it's still working okay15. You're two years ahead of your time.16. We're not ready for that.17. It isn't in the budget.18. Can't teach an old dog new tricks.19. Top management will never go for it.20. We'll be the laughing stock.21. We did all right without it.22. Let's form a committee.23. Has anyone else ever tried it?

Summary

Innovation is a skill that can be learned by practice

Innovation-oriented thinking can help individuals, employees, and business-owners

Realizing an idea’s potential requires “selling” on the part of all inventors.

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