ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors consider the individual inventor, and discuss the patent system, although this is clearly relevant as well to their discussion of industrial research and development activities. The technological effects of this development were an expansion in the production and consumption of cotton. A useful invention either permits the production of new goods or enables reductions in cost to occur. Large amounts of capital are now required in many research activities, and large salaries that firms can offer bring many would-be individual inventors into industrial laboratories. The chapter describes that between the extremes of the pure individual inventor and the pure corporate inventor, there will be some inventors who have some of the characteristics of each of the extremes. It also considers the relative magnitude of the inventive activity that is undertaken by individuals. The chapter describes how to pick out inventions from the host of small changes in products and processes that are being made continually.
