If you can build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door, according to the pithy advice generally attributed to 19th-century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poet and essayist was all for hard work and creativity and the rewards it could reap, but as is the way of these things, he probably never said exactly those words.
They have, however, been inspirational to thousands of ingenious New Zealanders, whose patent applications dating back many years can be examined at leisure at iponz.govt.nz, the website of the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office.
Better still, a close examination of the site shows that no one is currently trying to patent any kind of mousetrap, so there’s a gap in the market.
The website’s search function has advice about using specialised digital strategies, such as Wildcard symbols and Boolean operators, so the creation of a user-friendlier website for the IPO is also something an energetic inventor might find worth pursuing.
In the better mousetrap category - things that already exist and for which you might have thought there was not currently a crying need – in 2024 applications were made for: A Table for Camping, A Portable Toaster, A Wood Splitter, A Hull for a Boat, A Foldable Clothes Drying Apparatus, An Improved Bracket, A Spray Bottle, A Lock and A Manhole Cover.
Some of the more obscure sounding applications might leave you wondering what inspired them, as there is apparently no obligation on people filing patents to include much detail in the early stages. Hence, the many potentially life-changing innovations tagged “no abstract yet”. These include A Self-Defence Device, Knit Sock with Integrated System for Engineered Comfort, Cushion and Breathability, Biodegradable Tea Leaf Straw and Method For Making the Same, Human Desires Activity-Based Psychometric, and Smart BS (probably not what it sounds like).
One growth area among the indigenous ingenuity community is clearly artificial intelligence, with the exciting/scary new technology included in many recent exciting/scary sounding patent applications: Artificially Intelligent Legal Advice and Research Aid, A Generative AI Based System for Personalised Health Management, A Method for AI-Assisted PCB Design and Layout, and An AI-Powered Cyber Security Platform for Dynamic Career Development, Mentorship and Recruitment.
Possibly because they have to explain their ideas in legally impermeable wording to prevent IP theft, patent applications tend to err on the humourless side. Only rarely do we encounter, for instance, a practical joke waiting to happen, such as A Collapsible Camping Chair (No Abstract Yet).
Occasionally, the drive for precision is abandoned and we are left with something more ambiguous. A High Dose Drug Delivery Service could be a medically transformative therapeutic aid, or it could be a new kind of neighbourhood bottle store. A Grease Dispensing System could be connected to one of any number of fast-food franchises.
In other cases we can only speculate. Is the normally low-profile BDSM community behind an application for a Shackle and Method of Assembly? There is no doubt however that the person who filed an application for A Grate and Grating did not have entertainment value as a priority.
A frequently invoked and slightly reductive metaphor for creativity is the well-known infinite number of monkeys trope. This postulates that an infinite number of monkeys engaged in randomly typing would eventually and accidentally reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare or, possibly within a shorter time, this column. They might also have made an application to the IPONZ and be the team behind the mysterious applications to patent a 10donziz or NSDH.
Such projects seem relatively modest, but there is evidence that some local innovators are prepared to take on the world’s biggest companies. What could A Composite Interlocking Construction System be other than a direct assault on Lego’s dominance of that market sector?
There are also rich pickings here for the conspiracy-theory adjacent community, such as the application for a Nematode Vaccine. Who knew that nematodes had reached such proportions that a vaccine was necessary? Once you know that nematodes are worms ranging in size from microscopic to several metres long, comprising more than 20,000 species and at home in plants and animals, a vaccine doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
Medicine features behind many innovations, although it is hard to tell where Methods for Reforming a Heavy Aromatic Stream fall into this category. Would you double your antihistamine fun with the Bi-Dose Nasal Spray?
Finally, along with all the all-too-practical applications for the useful likes of the Improved Lift Arm, Improved Scaffold Bracket, Battery System Improvements For Evs, Improved Shellfish Sock [what was wrong with the old ones?] and Drip Irrigation Diverter Improvements, there are those that must remain mysteries: the Oscillating Slabber, Decaffeinated Tea Cigarettes, Opening Device for a Package and Package Having an Opening Device, Plant-Based Cheese Product and Method of Making a Plant-Based Cheese Product, and the Dishwasher Dining Table.
Down on the farm lives may be about to be transformed by an Animal Shoe, or Carcass Dehairing Methods. Family nights could be much more fun if the Board Game Combining Chess, Dice and Cards ever reaches the market. Is the Charity Donation and Payment System actually a licence to print money?
If the Headphones with Side Screens and Cameras for Creating a Visual Transparency Illusion go into production, will we finally be able to make ourselves invisible? Will they work in tandem with the Devices and Techniques for Stealthing and Deceiving Capability?
What the IPO site does unquestionably show is that in 2024, that much vaunted “kiwi ingenuity”, which gave us the jandal and jelly tip, was still hard at it, trying to come up with world-beating innovations.
Admittedly, our glory days of churning out jetboats and inventing bungee jumping are receding into the distant past. In 2023, New Zealand occupied a modest 27th position in the Global Innovation Index, between Italy and Cyprus, but we’re still out there giving it our best shot.
