Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration; so said Thomas Edison and he ought to know having filed patents for over 1,000 new products; items including the phonograph (early record player) and the dictaphone.
But not the electric light bulb. Although it is normally regarded as his signature work, the idea of sending a current through a thin wire held in a partial vacuum to create light was first demonstrated years before he was born. However, back in the early 19th Century vacuum technology was rubbish, the bulbs glowed feebly and briefly… and then went out. It would be years before a machine capable of creating a good vacuum (physicists say hard vacuum) was invented. Then the race to produce a workable light bulb was on.
And in 1880 Edison won. His triumph wasn’t about the initial concept, it was about turning that concept into a commercially viable end product. He needed to find a (reasonably cheap) metal alloy that would glow brightly enough and last long enough to be useful. Thus making it worth installing electricity in homes instead of gas lighting. And his name has been almost synonymous with this idea ever since.
Innovators are always looking to improve the original. Making them last longer and glow stronger and cost less to produce, be more robust, even changing the shape for practical purposes or just to be decorative.
Finally even more advanced technology has superceded the incandescent bulb and it is now disappearing from our homes to be replaced with fluorescent bulbs and LED lights consuming far less power for the strength of the light they produce.
If you are creating new ideas or making old ideas work or work better then the government will help.
R&D tax credits are available for new and innovative products and processes. It doesn’t have to change the world like the light bulb did, it just has to make it that bit better.
If you want to discuss this, then call me to find out if you have got money lying around your business, just waiting to be picked up. 01482 814895 or email paul@pgsaccountancy.co.uk
Have a great week
Paul