It is entirely possible to discover and develop an invention without being able to implement it.
My best example is a very experienced engineer I used to consult for. In the process of explaining something to me, he had an epiphany and came up with a new method for "leveling" high power battery packs. Over the next few weeks, he tested concepts of the idea and was able to fully describe the design.
Problem? He was an old analog power supply design engineer who knew nothing about programming and the only way his idea would be feasible would be using software. He couldn't build it, so I did, for him. Eventually he patented the idea.
The point is that he could have gone through the entire patent process successfully without a working implementation. Should he have been refused a patent because he didn't have the skills to build it himself? What if he couldn't afford to pay me to implement it? The idea itself is no less valuable: he was obviously capable of explaining it well enough for someone to code the controller. I would argue that it's exactly his type of problem that necessitates a patent: someone with a brilliant idea, who can clearly describe how it should be implemented, but can't afford to do it himself (tooling up to build these things in quantity requires a lot of capital) and is willing to sell that patent to a manufacturer for final implementation.
My best example is a very experienced engineer I used to consult for. In the process of explaining something to me, he had an epiphany and came up with a new method for "leveling" high power battery packs. Over the next few weeks, he tested concepts of the idea and was able to fully describe the design.
Problem? He was an old analog power supply design engineer who knew nothing about programming and the only way his idea would be feasible would be using software. He couldn't build it, so I did, for him. Eventually he patented the idea.
The point is that he could have gone through the entire patent process successfully without a working implementation. Should he have been refused a patent because he didn't have the skills to build it himself? What if he couldn't afford to pay me to implement it? The idea itself is no less valuable: he was obviously capable of explaining it well enough for someone to code the controller. I would argue that it's exactly his type of problem that necessitates a patent: someone with a brilliant idea, who can clearly describe how it should be implemented, but can't afford to do it himself (tooling up to build these things in quantity requires a lot of capital) and is willing to sell that patent to a manufacturer for final implementation.