Invention and Innovation

The invention is an idea, a device or a product that leads to a technological progress. The term derives from the Latin inventio that means finding .

In legal terms this means a new and original solution to a technical problem that may, therefore, be protected by a Patent of Invention. It may refer to a product or a process (method, procedure).

In accordance with a citation made by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, innovation is a discovery application or the commercialization of an invention. In the moment in which the invention becomes an integral part of economic activity, that is, when it begins to have economic consequences, it becomes an innovation. To transform an invention into innovation , a Person or a Company must combine knowledge, skills and abilities, and information about the market, sufficient financial resources, and so on.

One of the biggest Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of the twentieth century, Henry Ford, has condensed this concept in his most famous slogan stating that "there is real innovation only when a technology is accessible to everyone."

(from Wikipedia in Italian and translated into English by Franco Oriti)