Stories of Creativity USPTO Kids' Pages

How do you think of an invention? Many inventors report stories of every day events that triggered them to think of some problem in a new way. The inventor of VELCRO ® reported that he thought of the invention while removing burrs from his pet's fur after walking in the woods. You may recall Eli Whitney's story of watching a cat pull feathers through a cage -- it was how he thought of the invention now known as the cotton gin.

A less well-known story involves Catherine Ryan, who invented locking nuts to hold bolts in place. Her inspiration was how her own wedding ring kept getting stuck on her finger. She saw that if something in the nut could expand after a bolt was placed inside a nut, it would hold the two together.

Other inventions have come about as their inventors tried to think of uses for things - vulcanized rubber for tires, etc. came about that way. You have heard of "yellow stickies" (PostIt ®). They were the result of a "failed" adhesive experiment which was too weak to market, until the chemist figured out that a weak adhesive had good uses too.

Many times you can come up with a solution for a problem (or find a problem that fits your solution!) by either "turning a problem around" or selecting two or more things at random and using them to "seed" new ideas. What does "turning a problem around" mean? It means looking at it from a different angle.

Carefully define a problem. Focus on what your basic requirements are - what you are trying to do in the first place - instead of simply how to do things. If you focus on methods, "i.e. "I need a way to use a computer to count apples", you may not identify a more basic problem - "I need to have about 1000 apples to sell every week" and miss a better solution altogether. Of course many patents issue on novel uses of things so don't just throw away an idea because it doesn't fit the rules - just how could you use a computer to count apples?

Try changing the question - start it with a different word - who, what, where, when, why, how, etc. Change your perspective on a problem - looking for something is not at all the same as finding it, and putting something away is very different from getting rid of it.

Think about something in an unexpected way. Describe doing something in words for something entirely different - search and rescue your toys; turn your closet into a menu of clothes; or feed a thought.

Try PROJECT XL for more ideas on inventive thinking.