#1249 Invention and Innovation

For our purposes the words 'invention' and 'innovation' can be used interchangeably. More [1] , however, the term 'invention' refers to the discovery of new products or processes, while 'innovation' refers to the commercialization (bringing to the market) of new products or processes. [2] , we can distinguish between product innovations and process innovations. Product innovations result [3] the production of a new product, such as the change from a three-wheel car to a four-wheel car, or the change from LP records to CDs. Process innovations increase the [4] of the methods of production of existing products, for example the invention of the assembly-line technique. The inventions and innovations that form industrial revolutions are those that open new doors and create new ways of doing things, not simply those that fill gaps in existing ways of doing things (Mokyr, 1997). The core of the First Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century was a succession of technological changes that brought about material advances in three basic areas: (1) the substitution of mechanical devices (such as machines) for human labour; (2) the substitution of inanimate sources of power (such as steam) for animate sources of power (such as horse power); and (3) the substitution of mineral raw materials for vegetable or animal substances, and in general the use of new and more [5] raw materials.