This is really a million dollar question that causes sleepless nights for many a brilliant scientist, researchers and entrepreneurs. The answer is not easy as sometimes the line is blurred when we attempt to define where invention starts and where innovation begins.

In its purest sense, Cambridge Dictionary defines “invention” as “something which has never been made before, or the process of creating something which has never been made before”, while “Innovation” is “the use of or the application of a new idea or method”.

You may say “there isn’t any more inventions to be discovered today. Everything that can possibly be invented is already done”. Yes and No. By inventions, if you are referring to rocket-science technology or undiscovered pure atomic or macro-sized inventions, than maybe you may be correct to assume so. However, much of the latest inventions in the past fifty years are simply tweaking of existing discoveries, or inventions that rely on other pre-discovered items or elements.

Take for instance the battery that nowadays is found in almost every household and consumer products today. People like Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta and Daniell Cell may be recorded in the archives as the discoverer of elements that provided the foundation for today’s batteries, but it was people like Georges Leclanche and Thomas Alva Edison who furthered their work to create the acidic and alkaline cell batteries. Of course we now have lithium batteries, solar cell batteries and other forms of materials.

The appropriate question to ask then is: Are later discoveries considered invention or innovations? Does inventions always equate to new discoveries or new forms of usage or new elements? Is innovation synonymous with products or application of usage?

Examples of Innovations

Of course the greatest person that comes to mind as the “father of innovations” is Steve Jobs, who over a period of 30 years uprooted three industries with his innovative products: MacIntosh (later shortened to Mac), iPod, iTune, iPhone and iPad. Can we seriously call these products new inventions? Yes and No. Computers already existed when the Mac was first launched, except it was many hundreds of times larger and more expensive. The music industry already had its Walkman and mini music player when the iPod was launched. Of course the mobile phone was the raze when the iPhone came along and created a sensation.

On the other hand, it can also be considered an invention because it redefined the way the consumers used and understood those devices.

Another famous example is Bill Gates, with his first MS DOS invention, which was widely copied and had created a whole industry of other operating systems (PC-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, PTS-DOS, ROM-DOS, Novell DOS, OpenDOS, 86-DOS, and many more). However when it launched its MS Office suite, can we seriously call that an invention? Or, is it really an innovation?

For those of you who ever used WordPerfect, Harvard Graphics and Lotus 123, you will know they were the kings of their own software realm once upon a time, until Microsoft came along and did something unheard of till then. Bundling all three software types into one package for the price of one. Functionality-wise, the first version of MS Office fell short of all the features available from the three incumbents then. Value for money-wise, Microsoft won with hands down completely, making it extremely difficult for any IT professionals responsible for procurement or licensing to justify with their management why they need to pay three times more than Microsoft’s single package pricing.

Examples of Inventions

If you are like me, and has difficulty naming any great inventions in the last two decades, that is because there aren’t many pure inventions. Perhaps the invention of the flashdrive could count as one. The digital camera or digital movie camera, or the 3D camera could be considered an innovation or invention, depending how you define invention.

Going back further in history, we have the invention of the light bulb, the first telephone, the first black-and-white television tube, the first flying machine, the first motorcar, the radio, and others.

All these pure examples of inventions are of course historical and memorable, as it has not only transformed our lives, but had created a multibillion dollar industry where hundreds of brands now exist.

Should you invent or innovate?

We return to our original question: As an entrepreneur, what should you do?  I doubt anyone can provide an adequate answer to this question. The right answer will always be “It Depends”. What exactly do you know? What do you have at hand? What competencies or skills do you possess? What resources do you have?

Every entrepreneur or researcher dreams of producing something new. Whether it is an invention or innovation should not be the primary concern. The passion, the interest and the desire to make it work should be. Look at Steve Jobs obsession in all his products. His drive and excessive push for excellence gave us today products that consumers swear upon, sleep with and spend a lot of money on.