ABSTRACT
An inventor is someone who has demonstrated skill at identifying and solving new problems. The problems identified can take a myriad of forms but typically relates to some activity that is familiar. The "solving" part of the definition of an inventor is far from a trivial problem, inasmuch as if the solution were obvious, it would not have been a problem in the first place. Time spent in inventing is probably time spent away from other activities, such as making a living. Once an invention has been born, at least two elements are needed to bring it to commercial usefulness. They are entrepreneurship and capital, which together are necessary to transform the invention to a commercially viable product. One way to look at the transition from stage-one to stage-two innovation is as a point at which the emergence of the invention as a viable commercial product greatly reduces the risk associated with further innovation.
