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But any requiem for American ingenuity would be premature, as today's patent applications powerfully suggest. In recent years, U.S. inventors have found ways to take layer-by-layer pictures of the body's organs, engineer bacteria that can digest spilled oil, build a shuttle craft for round trips into space. Within the past few months, patents have been obtained on a light bulb that will last ten years and a toothless gear, while inventors have devised ways to dispose of nuclear wastes and make good use of discarded beverage bottles. Now, inventive Americans are turning their attention toward finding alternatives to oil, increasing food production and further improving the speed and ease of communication. Says Dr. Simon Ramo, vice chairman of TRW: "The era of 'science Olympics' is over; the future is for more down-to-earth stuff. Much of what happens in the future is related to how American innovators respond to current challenges in energy, in food production. Only the U.S. has the unique combination of resources, the people, the science and technology to respond."
And only the U.S., say some social scientists, has the right atmosphere for innovation. Says Chaytor Mason, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California: "There are three things that keep the spirit of invention alive. First is our form of government; it encourages more independence than most. Second is the high rate of competition. Finally, this country just seems to spawn a little craziness."
A tolerance for eccentricity may have helped Edison or the Wright brothers. But what large-scale innovators need more is money. Most of this now comes from the country's major industrial companies, which have been hard-pressed to maintain research budgets against the pressures of inflation and recession.
The companies, which maintain large well-organized laboratories, readily admit that the team approach to invention is less romantic than the notion of the inventor as a lonely visionary working in his basement or garage. But the days when information was simple and equipment inexpensive are past. The explosion of new patents, new concepts, new materials, new applications, new chemicals and new machinery that has occurred during the past two decades makes it virtually mandatory that a creative person have major support if he is to solve major problems. Says Bernard Oliver, head of research and development at Hewlett-Packard in California: "Ideas do not come out of committees but from individuals. But a team effort sets the inventor up to make the one last leap and test it."
Team research has allowed some large companies to do exactly that. G.E. has improved the design of nuclear reactors and introduced many consumer products, including frost-free refrigerators and microwave ovens. Bell Labs has developed ways to communicate by sending beams of light along hairline glass fibers.