OPINION

National inventor’s day: Celebrating creative minds

Paul C. Ney, Jr.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed Feb. 11 National Inventors’ Day, observing that “the economic and technological preeminence which our Nation has known for many years and enjoys today is in large part due to the efforts of our inventors.”

Four years later President Ronald Reagan issued a similar proclamation recognizing the “enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world.”

In a similar vein, President Barack Obama last year also declared a National Day of Making to celebrate our nation’s heritage of entrepreneurial spirit and technological innovation. He called on people across the country to join in sparking creativity and encouraging invention in their communities.

February 11th marks the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Alva Edison, one of America’s most prolific and influential inventors. It is an occasion both to celebrate the genius of Alexander Graham Bell, Patricia Bath, George Washington Carver, Steve Jobs, and other notable American inventors, and also to recognize, appreciate, and encourage the creative potential inherent in each of us.

While the word “inventor” typically conjures a mental image of a scientist or engineer – perhaps a bit eccentric – many inventions are the product of ordinary people solving everyday problems.

Inventiveness is not confined by gender, age, wealth, or race. Louis Braille invented Braille at the age of 15, popsicles were brought to us by an 11-year old named Frank Epperson, and a pizza delivery man invented Kevlar bulletproof vests. Who knows from where the next revolutionary idea could come, and what must we do to nourish the inventive spirit in all of us?

Fortunately for us, Nashville has a rich heritage of creative thinkers, makers, and entrepreneurs. Our abundance of creativity has not gone unnoticed – Forbes recently ranked Nashville third on its list of The Next Biggest Boom Towns in the U.S., and Fortune reported that Nashville is the country’s second-fastest growing market for creating technology jobs.

We encourage creativity through local innovation hubs and organizations such as the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, the Nashville Technology Council, Music City Inventors, and Fort Houston, to name but a few local enclaves of invention, imagination, and innovation. In Nashville, we celebrate the creative mind on a daily basis.

Not every inventor churns out innovations the way Thomas Edison did, or views so many age-old problems with the insight of Benjamin Franklin. Anyone, however, can identify a problem, deficiency, or challenge in everyday life and apply creative powers in a novel way to make life better, easier, or more fun. That’s a concept to celebrate.

Nashville’s innovative spirit and entrepreneurialism has fueled the growth of our city and will contribute to our continued prosperity. In his proclamation of National Inventors’ Day, President Reagan called on the American people to observe this day “with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

Although he gave us no further guidance on how to celebrate, we can be confident that the creative minds of Nashville will come up with a solution to that and many other pressing challenges. Happy Inventors’ Day.

Paul C. Ney, Jr., shareholder with Patterson Intellectual Property Law, P.C., Nashville’s premier full service intellectual property law firm handling patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and domain name related matters for its client.