Blog 27: Charles Leadbeater: The era of open innovation

Leadbeater starts his talk off with a simple, but interesting question: who invented the mountain bike?

This is interesting because traditional economic theory would say that the mountain bike was probably invented by some big bike corporation that had a big R&D lab where they were thinking up new projects, and it came out of there. But in reality, that’s not how it happened. Instead it came from the actual users who were frustrated with traditional bikes and wanted something better! They combined different features from different bikes. Took parts from regular bikes, from motorcycles, etc. They combined a bunch of features from different models to create the first mountain bike! Consumers, actual users were able to see this need and create something needed.

He talks about the importance of “creative collaboration. ”  Our patent system is based on an outdated idea, says Charles Leadbeater in this talk from TEDGlobal 2005. “All of our patents, our entire approach to patents and invention, is based on the idea that the inventor knows what the invention is for.” With rapidly expanding technology, however, Leadbeater says that innovations are cumulative, with new users adding on to previous uses on a near constant basis. More and more, the inventors of things will not be able to say that in advance. It will be worked out in use, in collaboration with users. We like to think that invention is a sort of moment of creation: there is a moment of birth when someone comes up with an idea. The truth is that most creativity is cumulative and collaborative; like Wikipedia, it develops over a long period of time.

Watch the video: http://blog.ted.com/6-talks-about-problems-with-patents/