IPKAT RANT: STEREOTYPING INVENTORS

New Scientist (4 October 2003, p. 92) reports:



"Overheard from a weary patent attorney talking about one of the organisations that represents inventors: "It's probably the only body where the lunatic fringe extends right to the centre".



The IPKat has also met some pretty strange inventors, but any group of like-minded people (football fans, cat-fanciers and even lawyers) is likely to seem abnormal to those on the outside. Inventors long have been stigmatised both individually and collectively for their weirdness -- but isn't their unorthodox way of viewing things to be viewed as a virtue rather than as a reason for locking them up? Let's be nice to inventors and give them some respect. If we do, they may feel less threatened by so-called normality and spend less time and effort getting up patent attorneys' noses.



Google hits for "mad inventor" - around 10,900. Google hits for (possibly partially) "sane inventor" - just one

Invention jokes here. Stereotypes of the mad inventor here, here and here

Useful information about sane inventors here