An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product, or a new process for creating an object or a result. An invention that achieves a completely unique function or result may be a radical breakthrough. Such works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field.
Some inventions can be patented. A Patent legally protects the intellectual property rights of the inventor and legally recognizes that a claimed invention is actually an invention. The rules and requirements for patenting an invention vary from country to country, and the process of obtaining a patent is often expensive.
Another meaning of invention is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social behaviors adopted by people and passed on to others. Invention is also an important component of artistic and design creativity. Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability.
Read more about Invention: Invention As Defined By Patent Law, Invention in The Arts
Other articles related to "invention, inventions":
... The men of the Academy expressed deep scepticism against the invention of a woman, and it took twelve years of testing, during which she had to fight among others the attempts of Anrep ... Her invention was long used within the Swedish army ...
... Other artists, designers and architects who are or were inventors include Filippo Brunelleschi Le Corbusier Naum Gabo Frederick Hart, Charles Eames, Louis Comfort Tiffany John La Farge Buckminster Fuller Walt Disney Man Ray Yves Klein Henry N ... Cobb I ...
... made and reduced to practical shape as far back as the year 1912 a very brilliant invention which anticipated and in some respects surpassed that actually put into use in the ... It was this claimant's misfortune and not his fault that his invention was in advance of his time, and failed to he appreciated and was put aside because the occasion for its ... as these that a claimant must show a causal connexion between the making of his invention and the user of any similar invention by the Government ...
... de Mole, and one pair) relating to the invention of tanks, delivered its findings and recommendations on 27 November 1919 ... The Commission's Report announced that "in estimating the value of the invention of the Tanks for the purpose of recommendations, we have taken into account not merely the precise class of Tanks which ... have not taken into account any special or exceptional inventions which may subsequently have been applied and have resulted in substantial extra ...
... Since these pioneering works, several guided-wave configurations based on the slot-waveguide concept have been proposed and demonstrated ... Relevant examples are the following In 2005, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed to use multiple slot regions in the same guided-wave structure (multi-slot waveguide) in order to increase the optical field in the low-refractive-index regions ...
Famous quotes containing the word invention:
“Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Heredity is a strong factor, even in architecture. Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
—Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)