Adam Dudding writes in the Sunday Star Times about concerns that, although Kiwis are highly inventive, we risk inventing the wheel repeatedly.
Using Rex (the exoskeletal legs recently developed in NZ) as an example, an intellectual property consultant has pointed out why the ‘invention’ may not be the commercial success people expect.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“There’s plenty wrong with the way New Zealanders invent and commercialise new products, says Slack, 38, who has lived here on and off since leaving his native UK in 1999. But by far the biggest bee in his bonnet is the vast amount of time, money and effort wasted when innovations are “invented second” (the oxymoron is his own coinage).
“”Invented second” is what happens when someone slogs their guts out to create something new, not realising it has already been done – sometimes decades earlier, or in an unrelated industry.”