Owning patents is not something to get excited about, says Kia Silverbrook, Australia’s top inventor

Is Kia Silverbrook history’s greatest inventor? On the surface, it might seem so. He holds 9,700 patents and patent applications internationally. Business Insider calls him the greatest inventor in the modern era. On the other hand, Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the light bulb, only accumulated 2,332 patents.

Yet raw numbers tell only half the story, a fact which Kia himself was quick to emphasize. Patents, he said, merely gives one the right to prevent someone else from making a piece of technology.

“Having a lot of patents is like having a lot of legal contracts, it’s not something to get excited about,” he added.

Kia Silverbrook was in Singapore for the Distinguished Technopreneur Speaker Series (DTS). It is an initiative that engages the world’s top innovators to share their experience with entrepreneurs, industry professionals, researchers, scholars and students in the country. The dialogue with Kia was held on 13th September at Biopolis, the center of biotechnology in Singapore. Read more

Distinguished Technopreneur Speaker With Sir Gregory Winter

A*STAR Exploit Technologies is organising the 3rd Distinguished Technopreneur Speaker (DTS) Forum to seed innovation and entrepreneurship in Singapore. DTS aims to engage entrepreneurs, industry professionals, researches, scholars and students and inspire them to explore the potential of entrepreneurship, innovation and emerging technologies as envisioned by the new economy. Read more