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Malcolm Gladwell, patents & creativity

Friday, 9th May 2008

The FT's John Gapper has a few doubts about the New Yorker man's latest piece, devoted to Nathan Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures:

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and an investor in IV, is quoted in the piece about one of IV’s notions: "They also came up with this idea to stop hurricanes. Basically, the waves in the ocean have energy, and you use that to lower the temperature differential. I’m not saying it necessarily is going to work. But it’s just an example of something where you go, Wow."
Wow indeed. But if it does not actually work, then I would suggest that it does not count as an invention. Even I can come up with big ideas that don’t work. I might even be able to patent a few. My point is that research and development are usually referred to in one phrase because one is useless without the other. Mr Mhryvold is tilting the playing field hugely in his direction (with Gladwell’s approval) by ignoring the development part. That is when the wheat is sorted from the chaff.

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