Innovation Getting Slower?

Daniel Dvorkin writes "A New Scientist article details the claims of Jonathan Huebner, a Naval Air Warfare Center physicist, that the rate of technological innovation is actually decreasing, not increasing exponentially as some people believe. Huebner says that there are now fewer 'important technological developments per billion people' than at any time since the 17th century! I'm far from convinced, but it's an interesting and thought-provoking article." From the article: "He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead."

Comments

Re:Not a big surprise there...

[servognome]

They work when you have a relatively small population base, but not when the population is in the billions. (And not when patents keep getting extended to longer and longer periods of time.)

Patents haven't been extended, copyrights have.

During the 1800s there were no improvements to the pistol for about 20 years due to patent restrictions. Patents are supposed to promote science and industry, but often have the opposite effect.

Even in the 20th century handguns haven't really been innovated upon. This is not because of patents, but because there is no market.

If there is a real need for a product, there are many ways to innovate around a patent (excluding software patents which is just screwed up and doesn't really represent what patents should be). That's why even though Viagra is patented there are like a dozen similar drugs a few years later. I work in electronics manufacturing, there is a huge movement towards lead-free processing. Patented alloys makes it difficult, but there are lots of ways around them. In general the shared information of patents outweighs the restriction. All patents do is make you think a little harder.(once again software patents excluded).

I would agree the time of patent protection is outdated due to the time to market differences of the 18th and 21st century.