Patents are primarily intended as a money-making source i.e. making money out of an idea by claiming rights on the idea. Number of applications for Patents showcases number of people who want to make money out of an idea. The idea may or may not be original. And the criteria for Patent acceptances, I presume , is that the idea is not already patented. In short, one can patent any idea as long as it is not already patented even if it is not new or original.
I am not saying that patents must not exist. I am not saying that patent must exist. I am simply pointing out that number of patents applied or accepted does not necessarily reflect innovation(or invention). And innovators(or inventors) do not necessarily apply for patents. Following is an example:
- J C Bose's letter to Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Laureate [16]: (In context of his 1901 lecture at the Royal Society, 17th May 1901, reproduced)
A short time before my lecture, a multi-millionaire proprietor of a very famous telegraph company telegraphed me with an urgent request to meet me. I replied that I had no time. In response he said that he is coming to meet me in person and within a short time he himself arrived with patent forms in hand. He made an earnest request to me not to divulge all valuable research results in today's lecture : "There is money in it -- let me take out patent for you. You donot know what money you are throwing away" etc. Of course, " I will only take half share in the profit -- I will finance it" etc. "¦ See, the research that I have been dedicated to doing, is above commercial profits. I am getting older - I am not getting enough time to do what I had set out to do -- I refused him.
http://web.mit.edu/varun_ag/www/bose_2006.pdf
J.C. Bose is, of course, the famous Indian innovator and discoverer. He is widely known for his discovery of stimuli in plants.
J.C. Bose was the first physicist who began an examination of inorganic matter (metals and certain rocks) in the same way as a biologist examines a muscle or a nerve. The investigations showed that, in the entire range of response phenomena (inclusive as that is of metals, plants and animals) there is no breach of continuity; that "the living response in all its diverse modifications is only a repetition of responses seen in the inorganic" and that the phenomena of response "are determined, not by the play of an unknowable and arbitrary vital force, but by the working of laws that know no change, acting equally and uniformly throughout the organic and inorganic matter.
Achievements of Sir J. C. Bose in the field of communication
(In a Nutshell)
Sir J. C. Bose invented the Mercury Coherer (together with the telephone receiver) used by Guglielmo Marconi to receive the radio signal in his first transatlantic radio communication over a distance of 2000 miles from Poldhu, UK to Newfoundland, St. Johns in December 1901. Guglielmo Marconi was celebrated worldwide for this achievement, but the fact that the receiver was invented by Bose was totally concealed. Read Bose's original paper on the receiver device.
In 1895, Sir J. C. Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. He sent an electromagnetic wave across 75 feet passing through walls and body of the Chairman, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. (I am in process of ascertaining how this experiment is placed in context of works by other scientists towards demonstrating remote transmission of EM waves).
Sir J. C. Bose holds the first patent worldwide to invent a solid-state diode detector to detect EM waves. The detector was built using a galena crystal. Have a look at Bose's patent and wait for an interesting article on the same soon.
Sir J. C. Bose was a pioneer in the field of microwave devices. His contribution remains distinguished in the field and was acknowledged by the likes of Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, etc. Read what people thought about J. C. Bose. Refer to [1,2] to study the work of J. C. Bose in the field of microwave.