Innovators and patent holders; The Hindu, 1/13/17

Achuthsankar S. Nair, The Hindu; Innovators and patent holders:

"J.P. Subramonya Iyer, who invented the tap, was a grass-root innovator, start-up hero, global technology merchant … all ahead of his times. He served as an insurance officer in Travancore-Cochin state. Noticing the wastage of water from road-side water taps that were carelessly left open, he dreamt of an automatically closing tap and got one such tap made with the help of his engineer friends. He patented it and went on to improve it further and patented the improved tap too...

Innovation is a buzzword in academia and the business world. Government and industries seem to take it as “invention—patenting—commercialisation—economic development.” Academia has a more intellectual view of innovation, focussing on the process of development of new knowledge leading to inventions. India has declared 2010-20 as the ‘Decade of Innovation’ and established a National Innovation Council...

An innovation ultimately creates wealth, through economic, social or environmental activity, by creating value, solving problems, creating jobs and so on. The Jaison water tap is an excellent example of innovation. Its production was an economic activity that created wealth and solved the problem of water wastage in public taps, which benefited society.

Almost everything we use or see in day-to-day life was at one time an innovation or invention that had a revolutionary effect on life of those times. Clothes, wheels, toys, tools, food, building materials, construction methods, traditional home utensils, appliances..."