DOW-UAP-D134, AAWSAP DIRD, Maverick Inventor Versus Corporate Inventor: Where Will the Next Major Innovations Arise, March 2010

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Maverick Inventor Versus Corporate Inventor: Where Will the Next Major Innovations Arise? Prepared by: Acquisition Support Division ( DW0-3) Defense Warning Office Directorate for Analvsis Defense Intelligence Agency AAP Person 75 Administrative Note COPYRIGHT WARNING: Further dissemination of the photographs in this publication is not authorized. This product is one in a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Defense Intelligence Agency, Defense Warning Office's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. Comments or questions pertaining to this document should be addressed to!AAP Person 1 AAWSA Program Manager, Defense Intelligence Agency, ATTN: CLAR/DWO-3, Bldg 6000, Washington,

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Maverick Inventor.................................................................................................. 1 The Type 1 Inventor............................................................................................... 6 The Type 2 Inventor............................................................................................... 7 The Type 3 Inventor................................................................................................. 8 The Type 4 Inventor............................................................................................. 10 The Type 5 Inventor............................................................................................. 10 Table 1. Types and Examples of Think Tanks.......................................................... 3 Table 2. Essential Elements That Characterize the Types of Inventor .................. 11

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Maverick Inventor Versus Corporate Inventor: Where Will the Next Major Innovations Arise? Technological innovation has been advanced by several sectors of human society and via a diverse set of circumstances. In the early 20th century, the solitary maverick inventor was responsible for the bedrock of most of today's industrial and commercial enterprises. As these enterprises grew larger, they could afford their own research and development departments, tasking them with developing products and processes aimed at increasing the market share of the parent company. Generally speaking, as time went on these types of enterprises became less hotbeds of true innovation than places where improvements to the current technologies were tightly managed. Such management became stultifying for many inventors wishing to produce true innovation, and these mavericks shunned the commercial research agencies and went off to carry out their own brand of research. Another institution where true innovation is fostered is the university. University research as it exists today started in Europe only in the 18th century. The bulk of the discoveries in science leading to technological innovation came from university research laboratories in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Currently there is considerable controversy surrounding the degree to which research at universities is free from external influences, whether from within the university, from the greater scientific community, or from public and/or private agencies that fund the research. As university salaries and expenses go up, there is increasing reliance on external funding sources, the majority of which wish to exert some influence over the type of research they are underwriting. Human aggression and human needs gave birth to two additional areas of innovation. As governments became embroiled in conflicts, they found the need to fund "think tanks" for the purposes of stimulating scientific developments that could aid war efforts. As well, the needs of their constituents for food, shelter, health care, energy, economic development, space exploration, and so forth demanded the establishment of government­ funded agencies to perform research and produce policy. To be effective, military planners needed access to the most innovative technologies in all areas of endeavor, not just armaments, and so established their own research and development departments. Circumstances determine the temporal requirement for innovation. Modern versions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse {wars, pestilence, lies, famine/death: read conflict, environment, economy, health) pretty well sum up the major stimulants that foster innovation. Fortunately, human society-at least so far-has shown a remarkable propensity for inventing methods of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. This paper concentrates on two areas of technological innovation where solutions have been particularly hard to come by-namely energy and

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propulsion, in particular aerospace and space propulsion. It is now the case that new and exotic materials and their dimensions are driving the quality and quantity of energy and propulsion innovations and preventing the average inventor from contributing new and useful forms and assemblies. The capital outlay required to probe the limits of current high technology in search of a new breakthrough is also beyond the means of the vast majority of lone inventors. These are the major reasons for the shift in focus from the lone maverick inventor to the "corporate inventor," the latter being a part of a large organization. This paper compares the roles of the maverick inventor who is less constrained by the strictures of a large organization with those of the corporate inventor and provides some insight into where to expect required future innovations in the areas of energy and propulsion.

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Maverick Inventor Most of the easy combinations of components and materials have been investigated repeatedly since the time of Michael Faraday. However, it is still to this "low-hanging fruit" that the average maverick inventor is drawn for inspiration. For example, in the area of energy innovation, it is still attractive to many inventors to try various combinations of permanent magnets and wire to try to improve the efficiency of modern electrical machinery, or better yet, claim to extract possibly limitless energy from these magnets. The average energy inventor is not bothered by pesky Laws of Energy Conservation or that the devices he is spending endless time on have been investigated hundreds of times before. There is also the role of the media, most important the Internet, in continuing to stimulate the creativity of the maverick inventor. Movies continue to depict the lone genius saving the planet via some invention, be it a physical weapon or a piece of computer code. This no doubt propels succeeding generations to believe that they may one day single-handedly develop a new free-energy or antigravity device and save the planet. Unfortunately, the Internet has fostered the belief that new inventions, especially in the areas of energy generation and gravity control, are relatively straightforward- one simply needs the correct comb,ination of macroscopic components. One of the disadvantages of the access to apparent technological innovation that the Internet provides is to foster and maintain intellectual and experimental laziness. This manifests itself in many ways, principally in that the prospective inventor increasingly believes that simply spending a few minutes on the Internet can give him all the