According to the dictionary definition, an invention is a new, original technical solution, which is a creative act, i.e. it is created as a result of creativity and innovative thinking.
An invention differs from a discovery in that in the case of a discovery it is a statement of the occurrence of a phenomenon that objectively exists, while an invention is the result of the creative work of a person or a group of people who, in order to solve a given technical problem, look for its optimal solution.
Most often, inventors are people from a scientific or technical environment (engineers) from various fields of technology, and the creator of an invention can be any person and only a human being.
As for whether artificial intelligence can make inventions in the era of technological development, the case of the “DABUS” inventions was widely publicized, where Stephen Thaler, the creator of the Dabus AI machine, lost cases to find that DABUS is the creator and owner of the patents filed under the EP 3564144 and EP 3563896 numbers, because, according to Thaler, it was the AI device that independently developed the inventions. In the case law of courts of many instances, including the Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom, it has been emphasized that an inventor can only be a “natural person” and not a machine.
Scientists and Researchers as Creators
People of science are, in a way, predestined to be creators. It is them, professionally conducting research, who can both discover the mechanisms of given phenomena, becoming discoverers, and if they manage to come up with a practical application of the discovered phenomenon, they can create inventions.
The process of creating inventions usually takes place in stages. For example, in the case of innovations in the field of medicine, the search for new therapies, drugs or technologies takes many years and has different stages of development.
The first step is to identify the health problem that needs to be addressed. Then, a search is carried out in the scientific literature and available treatment methods are reviewed to find their gaps or imperfections.
At the next stage, the researcher conducts basic research in order to explore the biological mechanisms of the disease, analyzes and tests research hypotheses, searches for targets for therapy, conducts in vitro laboratory tests, more and more often supported by in silico tests.
The steps described above can lead to the identification of the biological mechanisms of the disease, so they are discoveries rather than inventions. On the other hand, creative activities that in practice will allow the use of the identified biological basis of the disease and potential therapeutic targets, for example through the development of new drugs, pharmaceutical compositions or diagnostic devices, will have an inventive character.
Can anyone be the Creator of an Invention?
In the case of individual creative work, as a result of which an invention is created, the matter is simple, the creator of the invention is one person. The problem of creativity arises when a team of many people works on solving a given problem.
It is a common practice to consider that all those who participated in the work on the invention are the creators of the invention. Meanwhile, only those people whose work was creative should be considered creators.
What does the creative nature of work mean?
Inventions, which are generally supposed to present solutions to technical problems, require that the people who develop them “go beyond” their professional routine. The creative nature of the work is therefore manifested in non-standard thinking about the solution, going beyond the scheme, reaching unexpected results.
Therefore, the inventor will not be the one who imitatively followed the instructions of another person and his work did not contribute in any way to achieving the solution. Similarly, the inventor cannot be AI.
The creative nature of the work is combined with the inventive level of the solution. If the inventor of an invention limits himself to a routine combination of known solutions, he will obtain a predictable effect, and thus at the stage of examining the patentability of the invention, the patent office will be able to undermine the inventive step of the solution and such an invention will not be protected by a patent. However, this does not mean that you have to come up with solutions that do not yet exist. Inventions are often created as improvements to known solutions.
To sum up, if the creative effort will bear the hallmarks of originality, will go beyond the usual patterns, or will improve what is already known, bringing new and non-obvious effects, then the work of such a person is of a creative nature.
Creative contribution and remuneration of Authors
In addition to determining the circle of creators, i.e. people whose creative nature of work contributed to the creation of the invention, an important aspect of the arrangements among the creators should be the determination of their creative contributions. It is usually defined as a percentage, with the sum of creative contributions being 100%.
The level of creative involvement of inventors does not have to be equal, the key to determining it should be the degree of involvement in the development of the concept of the solution, i.e. mental effort (creation) and not the amount of physical work that a given co-creator put into the development of the invention.
Determining the level of creative involvement of inventors has its consequences when dividing the remuneration for the use of the invention or when selling the right to the invention or dividing the profits from the license granted, so it is worth determining the actual creative contribution to the development of the invention reflecting the degree of intellectual contribution of each of the creators.
Moral rights and economic rights of Authors
According to national regulations, 1 the inventor of an invention has economic rights, i.e. the right to obtain a patent, the right to remuneration and personal rights, i.e. to be mentioned as the inventor in descriptions, registers and other documents and publications.
Depending on the circumstances in which the invention was created, the economic rights may be vested in the employer or the ordering party (if the invention was the result of the author’s performance of duties under the employment relationship or the performance of another contract). Property rights are transferable and subject to inheritance. On the other hand, the author’s moral rights belong only to the creator and cannot be transferred or sold to someone else.
Features of the Inventor of the Invention
Inventions are the result of creativity and innovative thinking that can arise in various fields and circumstances. Anyone who thinks outside the box, sees problems and finds non-obvious solutions can be an inventor. The creators of inventions are creative people, seekers of knowledge, careful observers. Age doesn’t matter, what matters is perseverance in pursuing goals, resistance to failure and the ability to cooperate, especially when innovation is forged in the course of teamwork. Often the creators of inventions are visionaries of their time, but also brave people who are not afraid of challenges. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. There is a lot of truth in this saying, because man has always strived for comfort and improving the world according to his imagination.
Author: Iwona Płodzich – Hennig
