Ralph H. Baer Quotes

Britain is famous for being great at inventing and poor at commercializing.

My company invents all kinds of new technology in lots of different areas. And we do that for a couple of reasons. We invent for fun - invention is a lot of fun to do - and we also invent for profit. The two are related because the profit actually takes long enough that if it isn't fun, you wouldn't have the time to do it.

The patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products.

I consider myself an inventor first and an entrepreneur second. In real life, my hero is Thomas Edison. He was a great inventor, but also an outstanding entrepreneur who was able to sell his inventions to the masses. He didn't just develop the light bulb; he invented the entire electric grid and power distribution system.

I'm working on inventing an aerosol spray that repels papparazi. I haven't perfected it but when I do I will make millions.

You need to invent things and you need to get them to people. You need to commercialize those inventions. Obviously, the best way we've come up with doing that is through companies.

Lincoln said that the Patent Office adds the flame of interest to the light of creativity. And that is why we need to improve the effectiveness of our Patent Office.

I had to learn everything about manufacturing, patents and how to run a business, and eventually I came up with an prototype that worked.

Patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents

The inventors we remember didn't invent anything. They're the people who took somebody else's invention and made it commercially viable.

American Inventor', a show I came up with launched in 2006. It's all of America's greatest and wackiest inventions rolled into one with a judging panel including the legendary George Foreman.

If we look at the fact, we shall find that the great inventions of the age are not, with us at least, always produced in universities.

Patents are basically rights to try and develop a commercial product.

When you create something that is popular, when you create a solution, you're an innovator, and you solve problems for people and they like what you have to offer, of course you automatically make money.

I fear this little episode does not speak very favourably for my business capacity in those early days, for I certainly ought to have made much more than I did by this really important invention.

Owned technologies are easy to grasp because they're so prevalent. They're technologies that are developed and shaped by a defined group, usually someone selling it.

The Obama Administration cares deeply about innovation and about helping to make sure that geeks across the country, those coming up with new discoveries and exciting inventions - and creating jobs along the way - have the freedom and security to keep innovating.

The reality is, is that we love competition, at Apple. We think it makes us all better. But we want people to invent their own stuff.

If you invent something, you're doing a creative act. It's like writing a novel or composing music. You put your heart and soul into it, and money. It's years of your life, it's your house remortgaged, huge emotional investment and financial investment.

Britain's great strength is its innovative, design and engineering natural ability and we're not using it.

If you look at where innovation - defined as ideas, not as commercial product - tends to live, the university system is remarkably innovative.

My passion for innovation and my interest in the 'business of science' has seen Biocon commercialize many innovative platforms and products.

I declined it. As we enjoy great advantage from the invention of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.

A country without a patent office and good patent laws was just a crab and couldn't travel anyway but sideways and backwards.

Patents should be for technological innovations. So a program for a new machine tool should be patentable but a non-technological innovation, such as grammar-checking software for a word-processor, should not be.