World’s most Admired Patent! Light doesn’t come from Light, but from Darkness! Power of Patenting! Read this story and a few lessons Learned in my life, How I lost my idea in this Patenting War!!

Dear Friends and Students

Can you imagine life without Light Bulb? Helped us to bring social order after Sunset right? Helped us to extend the workday in the night right? Without a light bulb there is no night life!

Well, while we enjoy these fruits, we should know the history of these great inventors, remember and appreciate them and learn a few business lessons.

We all give credit to Thomas Alva Edison as an inventor of the bulb! Partly right in the traditional sense but it is not true. There were around 20+ inventors before Edison invented the version in 1879! Edison’s version is more practical, economically viable, high resistance, an effective incandescent (emitting light as a result of being heated.) material! Hence so much credit offered to his version.

In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. On July 24, 1874 a Canadian patent was filed by a Toronto medical electrician named Henry Woodward and a colleague Mathew Evans. They built their lamps with different sizes and shapes of carbon rods held between electrodes in glass cylinders filled with nitrogen. Woodward and Evans attempted to commercialize their lamp, but were unsuccessful. They eventually sold their patent to Edison in 1879 (bulbs.com)

Edison filed his first patent application for "Improvement in Electric Lights". However, he continued to test several types of material for metal filaments and further a few more. It was the beginning of the commercially manufactured light bulbs and in 1880, Thomas Edison’s company, Edison Electric Light Company began marketing its new product.

Having said that, the bubble industry continues to be innovating! Incandescent bulbs are not energy efficient, only 10% of electrical power supplied to the bulb is converted into visible light. Hence a lot of emphasis is made on compact fluorescent lamps and LED lamps .Let us look at the importance and magnitude of the usage! There are around 5.6 billion light bulbs in the U.S! Manufacturers sell approximately 2.5 billion light bulbs every year!! How could an idea make a whopping market?

Lessons Learned in my Life! How I lost my Idea for not patenting at the right time?  

In 2012, myself along with a few students conceptualized, “Toothbrush with replaceable/Plug and Play bristle head using Herbal and Green material”!

We called it the HG (Herbal Green) Brush. Herbal Way- It is made of herbal teeth cleaning twigs like Neem, banyan & Miswak (toothbrush tree) etc. Like plug & Play razor, bristles are made as plug & play so that we can reuse the rest of the brush body; Handle is made of Bamboo/any other similar green available product. It reduces the huge amount of plastic usage. Bristles can be made from Neem, Miswak, Baniyan, Salvadora persica, Dakhaar, Gum tree, Tea Tree, Gouania lupuloides, Cinnamon, Dogwood etc.

You may check the pictures of my idea at: https://i2itm.blogspot.com/2022/01/hg-herbal-green-brush-toothbrush-with.html

What Happened? I can see a lot of patents filed in this area after 2012. We missed filing this patent in 2012. Exactly 10 years later, we lost it. When you have great ideas, patent them quickly and commercialize them ASAP.

Having great ideas is not an asset! Commercializing them quickly is part of business. Great Lessons Learned in my professional life!!

Patent Your Ideas and Power Your Business!!!

Your Well-wisher

Ravi Saripalle

Join Inspire to Innovate Storytelling Movement (i2itm.blogspot.com)