Читать книгу Driving Eureka! - Doug Hall - Страница 37

The interconnected marketplace is creating exciting opportunities for increasing innovation speed. Just as it’s empowering customers, it’s empowering companies. Proactive leaders can discover and develop breakthrough technologies with faster speed and less risk if they upgrade their management and innovation systems to leverage the opportunities present in the new marketplace.

Evidence of the rising ability to innovate is the number of patent filings in the USA. The USA is a great barometer, as the market is big and many of the world’s patent offices use the US filings as benchmarks.

Historically, patent filings have grown at a slow and stable rate. However, as the chart that follows shows, as the number of internet users around the world has grown, so, too, has the number of patent filings. The internet has enabled inventors and entrepreneurs to make technical connections, conduct patent searches, and find opportunities faster than ever before. It has made it the best of times to be an inventor.

Interestingly, two out of three patents filed in the USA are granted to someone either born outside the USA or to a company from outside the USA. To borrow a line from Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the USA, owned in the USA” is not the way with technology anymore. The internet is making it easy for everyone everywhere to innovate. In fact, somewhere in South Korea, Northern Ireland, or South Africa, there is someone with an idea, some education, and a ton of motivation to disrupt your company, industry, and career.