For Inkjet Innovation Week, held last week as a series of five webinars, Inkjet Insight wanted to focus on true innovators and their innovations, so we started by talking with an international group of experts about what makes something innovative rather than just new.

“I might have read too many press releases but ‘new’ usually just refers to a minor iteration of something that already exists,” said Nessan Cleary of Printing and Manufacturing Journal. “True innovation means something that genuinely advances the market, usually by disrupting the market or solving a serious problem—such as introducing inkjet printing into the production of ceramic tiles.”

Pat McGrew of McGrew Group noted that the ability to jet ink was observed in the 1830s, but it took years of experimenting and testing to create a practical implementation that enabled inkjet-based products.