How to Improve an Invention with IP.com

New ideas—even really good ones—aren’t ready for a patent application and spot on store shelves right out of the gate. The most successful ideas aren’t actually very new at all. Instead, they’re improvements on previous inventions. For example, Google wasn’t the first search engine, nor was Facebook the first social media platform. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the first lightbulb either! These wildly successful inventions were improvements on ideas that already existed. In fact, these improvements became longer-lasting than the original inventions. 

In all three of these examples, the improvers enjoyed greater success than the inventors with the novel concept. Often, an idea needs to be considered by an outside perspective before reaching its full potential. Unfortunately for the first inventor, it’s this outside perspective that reaps the benefits of the improved invention. What if you could enjoy the benefits of an outside perspective within your company’s innovation cycle and improve your invention before going to market at all? Adding improvement to your product development process results in better end products with stronger patents and a competitive advantage. 

Improving Your Invention

Improving an invention, no matter when you undertake the process, takes time and resources. Market and patent research traditionally require trained professionals and/or large amounts of time. This not only adds to product development or improvement costs; it also increases the time it takes to get to market. 

IP.com’s software suite offers companies a solution to many of the challenges of improving inventions, therefore unlocking the benefits of doing so. The process begins with IQ Ideas Plus™, which combines the brainstorming power of IQ Ideas™ with the ability to improve invention disclosures, thanks to IQ Inventors Aide™. AI-enabled IQ Ideas Plus™ helps R&D teams uncover new ideas using existing prior art, much like the outside perspectives so critical to improvements. The tool also allows engineers and scientists to communicate more efficiently and effectively with IP teams thanks to improved invention disclosures. Using this AI-enabled solution, organizations can improve inventions, increase collaboration, and decrease outsourcing. 

Once an idea, improved by the brainstorming capabilities of IQ Ideas Plus, becomes an invention disclosure, it can be reviewed for novelty using the Technology Vitality Report (TVR). The report ranks hundreds of invention disclosures quickly and transparently, allowing the IP team to prioritize novel ideas and send lower-quality disclosures back to the R&D team for improvement. This further reduces the resources required to bring an innovation to market while increasing confidence in patentability and usefulness. 

Throughout the development and improvement processes, Innovation Q Plus® offers intuitive yet advanced patent search. Ongoing patent research and insights, paired with AI-enabled brainstorming and reporting, allows companies to be well-informed about the technology and competitive landscapes surrounding their improved invention. 

Once an invention is brought to market, the innovation lifecycle begins again—perhaps even with further improvements to the very same product.