Among those on the list of famous inventors, Thomas Edison is one of the best known. Edison did not invent the light bulb. His was a copy of one patented in England a year earlier.
In all, light bulbs had been around in one form or another for at least 50 years by the time the American inventor filed.
The best that can be said for Edison, who lost all patent rights to the light bulb after court battles in both England and America, is that he was an unstoppable innovator. He set up his business as though it were a manufacturing plant for ideas and inventions.
Edison’s success lay in the fact he was willing to improve and surpass the achievements of those who came before him. There is a difference between an inventor and an innovator, slight to be sure, but one from which we can be instructed.
Edison remains on the list of famous inventors because he held patents on hundreds of products other than the contested light bulb. But many of the inventions for which he received credit were in fact developed with the same methodology that got him into trouble over the unfortunate bulb business.
That’s not a criticism, just an observation. Inventors produce new products through a process of innovation, which is to say, they build on the foundation of what already exists.
Electric lights were demonstrated by 1802. The incandescent lamp came next, as inventors attempted to remove oxygen from the bulb and find the best filaments to burn. James Lindsay demonstrated a constant electric light in Scotland during a public meeting in 1835.
In fact, there were some 23 documented inventors of incandescent light bulbs before Edison’s patent. They were all innovators, as was their ultimately more famous counterpart, Edison himself.
Without using what others have discovered in order to make improvements on what already exists, progress would be impossible. When we consider the list of famous inventors who have lived before us, we should be clear about what was required of them to make that list.
Experimentation with the known is inherit in the art of innovation, without which there would be no need for a patent office.