On creativity and Innovation

Mel Rosenberg I think that foolishness is the mother of invention. It’s this childish wonder at the world just noticing things and making mistakes. I teach my students that clever people learn from mistakes but the very clever people patent them.

Ilanit Appelfeld You are listening to Professor Mel Rosenberg inventor of the famous double face mouthwash now sold by Colgate. It is interesting to hear from Mel as someone who has invented. Patented, sold and saw his product go from invention to market what he thinks about patents. When we think about protecting technology we often think of patents and I feel that not enough emphasis is being given to other forms of intellectual property protection trade secrets for example. I think that we need to be creative enough also in choosing the right way to protect our product. When we talk about innovation we usually think success. So it is also interesting for me to hear Mel talk about the number of times that he had failed and the importance of feeling a spark of his success. So lets have some innovation time with Mel Rosenberg.

Ilanit Appelfeld Hi Mel I’m very excited that you’re here. I’m excited. Thanks for coming. It’s my great pleasure. Let me introduce you to our listeners.

Mel Rosenberg Hi listeners.

Ilanit Appelfeld You manage the Ketter Innovation Center at Shenkar college in Ramat Gan, you invented the famous double phased mouthwash which was sold to Blistex and then sold to Colgate in the UK. You teach creative thinking and entrepreneurship skills in Shenkar. You’re a professor of microbiology Tel Aviv University. You’re a musician and also a children’s book writer.

Mel Rosenberg I’m primarily a children’s book writer but I’m not discovered yet.

Ilanit Appelfeld And lately I’ve heard that you have been approached by one of the incubators with a request to be their innovation expert.

Mel Rosenberg I can’t deny that but I’m not going to confirm it either.

Ilanit Appelfeld Well let’s just dive in.

Mel Rosenberg Dive away.

Ilanit Appelfeld How do you decide if and when to file a patent application.

Mel Rosenberg So of course not all ideas need to be patented. Not all ideas can be patented and not all ideas should be patented. I think that if you have a chance of licensing of of making a deal with a large company within a very small period of time less than a year then it’s a good idea to protect your intellectual property. If you’re starting out it might not be a good idea because that year or a year and a half or two years or three years it passes very very quickly and then you’re asked to spend tens of thousands of dollars sometimes more are protecting an idea that you may not ever sell.

Mel Rosenberg Yes but when you’re a small company you don’t know what your product is going to be. Right. And then you have then very often the claims in your original patent are not the claims that you want to protect. Right. This has happened to me.

Ilanit Appelfeld So your advice would be wait as much as you can in filing your patent until at least you know what your product is or at the very least you know what you want to license out.

Mel Rosenberg Well there’s there’s always a dilemma because you can’t tell anybody about your or your invention if you haven’t patented it yet or you shouldn’t perhaps. And if you don’t tell anybody how are you going to market sell it to license it and so on. Right. So the