Everyone can, and should, be an inventor

Invention comes about in a myriad of ways. Your Inventive Mind explores them and puts them to work.

You can invent what you perceive to be a need, personal or societal, your own need or someone else’s need. You can invent by “fooling around� with thoughts, ideas, things, objects.

You can invent by putting together two or more ideas, or things that at first glance seem to have nothing to do with each other. You can dream about what “I wish I had� and that marvelous quality, your imagination, will fill in the gaps quite often.

You can invent by responding to some irritant or obstacle in your path with alternative ways of overcoming or getting around it. You can invent by exchanging ideas and thoughts with others and when you are perceptive enough to hear things that no one else seems to hear. You can invent in numerous fields — technical, artistic, physical, recreational, educational, culinary, child rearing, adult rearing — and in just about any of your life pursuits. Your opportunities for invention are endless.

Some inventions end up as patent applications in the U.S. Patent Office, or in patent offices around the world in other countries. Often patents are issued. Some inventions might be submitted to the patent offices but never make it.

An invention might be an idea, a thought, a written description, a physical thing — something that is new for you. Regardless of the fact that anyone else might have had the same idea someplace, or a similar idea. If your idea is a new one for you, then you are an inventor.

If your idea has not been thought of by anyone else, you are an inventor and that invention might merit a patent, a trademark or perhaps a copyright. Strictly speaking, “inventions� are divided into two forms when you apply for a patent. You might apply for and receive a mechanical or a design patent for your idea, mechanism or design.

Trademarks are specific designs for labeling a product or a company and you see them all around you: the General Mills “Big G�; the N.B.C. “Peacock� on T.V.; the name “Sony� on Japanese-made electronic equipment; etc. Copyrights apply to printed materials such as articles, stories, books, movies, musical compositions, newsletters such as mine, Creativity In Action.

As a child, it might have been easier for you to have been an inventor than it might appear to be now. Almost every thought you had as a child was new to you — was an invention. Your imagination, at first, knew no bounds. Then when adults told you that one of your ideas was silly or “childish,� old hat, or just plain worthless, you learned to keep some of those imaginative thoughts and ideas to yourself. You often might have heard the word “don’t.�

As time went on you learned that in many situations, if you curbed your fertile imagination, it caused you to have less trouble and you stayed in the “safe area� of already known ideas. Your ability to invent declined markedly. You might not have realized it. You were growing old.

If you are one of those fortunate children whose parents and family responded favorably and positively to your flights of fancy and inventions, it is much easier for you to be an inventor now, as an adult. You still remember how to dream and how to be fancy-free.

If not, however, you can surely recapture those childlike qualities of curiosity and imaginative thinking and action. And when you do so, you are entitled to feel very good about any idea or invention you think of, whether one other or a million of others have thought of it, too.

It will take a little courage and a little or a lot of practice for you to think creatively frequently. Based on my experience, I am sure and convinced that you can do so. It is often useful to make notes and to write down something about an idea that you have in order to continue to be able to see it and deal with it. Inventors love to make notes of their thoughts and that helps them carry their ideas through to completion.

An inventor may be referred to as a person who doesn’t look at life the way it was yesterday, but the way it will be tomorrow. That’s the way that Harry Freeman, the inventor of the fastest hamburger-forming machine in the world, put it.

I have had experience teaching in high school and college and with people who attended my seminars on creativity, helping them think about inventing. Many people feel that an inventor is a freak or magical figure who can dream up brand new ideas from nothing, and that they themselves are incapable of that. My interest has always been to change their attitudes and points of view. The fact is that almost everyone at some time or another thinks up a way of doing something that is different and better than the usual way.

Pick something that you would like to do or to be better than it is now. What might have to be done with it in order to accomplish that change? Take as much time as you want. Don’t worry about the conclusion. Give yourself a chance to act and think like a youngster again. It will make you feel good and you will probably dream up some new ideas. Develop your Inventive Mind.

Sidney X. Shore is a scientist, inventor and educator who lives in Sharon and holds more than 30 U.S. patents.