INVENTION AND INVENTIVITY AS A SPECIAL KIND OF CREATIVITY, WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR GENERAL CREATIVITY

Much of the study of creativity uses broad definitions of creative out puts, often including together the creative acts of artists, children, scientists, etc. Perhaps because of these broad definitions, it has b een difficult to derive useful predictions of creativity. This paper e xamines a narrow slice of creativity, the invention and the inventor w ho makes the invention. Furthermore, a new parameter measuring invento rs is defined - Inventivity is the rate of production of patents by an individual inventor. Examination of a large number of inventors shows that Inventivity is a parameter that can be measured and used to dist inguish among inventors. The results are shown to be consistent with o ther studies and are used to support several theories of creativity.