Thomas Edison is the iconic American inventor. He holds 1,093 U.S. patents in his name. He was a master of tinkering, hard work, and finding utility for his ideas. If you want to learn how to become an inventor like Thomas Edison, you've come to the right place.

• Have great ideas by learning and doing.

• Good inventions are useful to people.

• Prototyping is a great method for testing a design.

• Inventions are protected with a patent.

• Inventions can be given to the public domain for the common good.

What's the greatest invention ever? The printing press, harnessing electricity, the computer, the Internet? That's a difficult question to answer, but all of these were certainly tremendous, groundbreaking inventions. To become an inventor, you don't need to create the world's greatest invention, you only to to design something that is useful. Becoming an inventor requires learning, doing, and figuring out how something can be done better with a specific technique or tool. It means thinking creatively, having confidence in your ideas, and a desire to make something great for humanity.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”, was coined by Plato more that 2,400 years ago in The Republic. This ancient wisdom still holds true today. Great ideas must have utility by people, and the greater number of people who enjoy that idea, the better it is. Therefore, necessity or need, drives great ideas.

To figure out what's necessary and important to people requires getting your hands dirty and doing everyday things. For example, let's say you're painting the walls in your house and realize you're spending way too much time painting the edges around the trim and ceiling. Is there a better way to do it? Go out and research various techniques and tools. If you don't find an adequate solution, here's an opportunity to invent something!

Having a great idea means recognizing when it is one. In our painting example above, one inventor might design a complex robot with pattern recognition and a paint gun that costs $1 million dollars to produce. It would certainly be a marvel of ingenuity, but it's not a great idea as an invention for helping people paint their homes. A better idea would be a tool that costs $10-$20, is easy to use, and reduces the time to do the task by at least 10%.

A prototype is an essential part of the invention design process. It means building one or a few units to be tested in practical use. A prototype figures out different materials, how things will work together, flaws in the design, and areas for improvement. Prototyping is essential in creating an invention that is not only useful, but as easy to use as possible. It is also a way to gauge production costs for physical inventions.

Prototypes come in a variety of types, such as proof-of-concept, visual, and functional. Proof-of-concept prototypes typically focus on a specific aspect of the design and not the whole invention. Visual prototyping means capturing the look and feel of a product, without building any of the real utility. Functional prototyping is generally the one employed by inventors, requiring a working model to be created. Functional prototypes allow testing of the invention for practical use and refinement of the design.

Once you've come up with a great idea and have built a prototype, it's time to protect your invention, if you wish to do so. Patent law was created to protect the interests of inventors. In the U.S., patents are filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)http://www.uspto.gov and with similar governmental offices in most countries. In figuring out what can be patented, the USPTO provides a fairly broad definition for a person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,”http://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/index.html#whatpat . Patent law requires that the subject be “useful”, however “useful” is a very abstract term. For example, patent #6,293,874 is a device for kicking one's own buttocks!http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6293874.PN.&OS=PN/6293874&RS=PN/6293874

A patent requires that the invention be novel. A patent search must be conducted to determine if the idea has already been discovered and protected. Patent searches can be done on your own or by a firm that specializes in doing them. There are great utilities on the web for doing patent searches, such as the USPTO patent searchhttp://patft.uspto.gov/ or Google Patentshttp://www.google.com/patents

U.S. patents require a fairly complex and long application process. Some individuals file the application themselves, however most use the legal assistance of a patent attorney. It will typically cost between $2,000 and $15,000 to obtain a patent, depending on if and who you use to assist with the process. Check out how to get a patent for more information on the process.

You do not necessarily need to file a patent, and may decide to release your invention into the public domain. This is frequently done with intangible inventions, like open source software applications.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DDT/is_2001_Nov_26/ai_n25037758/ This may simply be done to be helpful to other people, but it's also a great way to become an expert in a certain area. Free access to an invention helps spur it's adoption, such as the successful Firefox open source web browser.

Now get out there and start inventing! Great ideas are made constantly in every field, hobby, and interest. You too can become the next Thomas Edison.