"Research is a different beast than creating a marketable product."

Well there are people in research looking for fundamental knowledge, e.g., string theory in physics or the finest details of biochemistry and genetic material in biology. And there are people doing make-work, junk-think, prof-scam, busy work. And in neither case is there much connection with a product or market.

But your claim is not true in all cases! I'm creating a "marketable product". That the product is desirable and "marketable" is mostly obvious. The challenge is how to create the thing.

I found a way. That way was some original research in applied math. Since I have Ph.D. for such math, I'm able to make a competent attempt at such research and to judge any results for correctness as math and significance for the real problem.

There's essentially no doubt that my idea is "new" and that no one else is working on it. Reasons: First, my work has some advanced prerequisites nearly unknown anywhere among full profs in computer science. They didn't take enough of the right grad math courses, and, actually, neither did more than a tiny fraction of math profs. Some of the courses are rarely taught; the combination of courses is especially rare. Second, the crucial part of the work is clearly original; there's no chance it's in the books or journals, and there's essentially no chance that anyone else with the prerequisites would be trying to get the same results.

To me, that research I did was the crucial 'idea' for my business. At this point, the rest is routine, a simple Web site, some simple usage of relational database, some fairly simple initial data gathering, and some routine publicity.

You are insisting on saying that the research is not business and not the idea and that the idea is the market for a solution for the customer pain. That definition of an 'idea' is new and strange and a big break with centuries of history in technology for business, medicine, and the military and with the whole history of the USPTO.

Yes, your new definition of an 'idea' has become very common in Web 2.0 information technology entrepreneurship.

The people who invented the formula for Tylenol would agree that that invention of the chemical formula, and possibly how to do the manufacturing, was the crucial 'idea'. Just a better pill to alleviate pain was not the idea.

For the market I'm addressing, sure, lots of other people have tried. It's just that for the customer pain I'm addressing, the results from the other guys just suck and the results from my idea, as is quite clear from some of the math, should be much better. Eventually it will dawn on some people in computer science that I must have made good progress in having computer software work effectively with how humans view 'meaning', where they will be correct, and start to say my work is close to earth shaking. But I don't want their characterizations, praise, prizes, approval, admiration, gratitude, tenure, invitations to give lectures, etc.; I want a yacht. Then I want to compose music, starting roughly with the techniques of Richard Strauss, and then pursue mathematical physics, often on my yacht.

Yes, other people have tried to solve the same customer pain, but I do not conclude from this fact that they have been working on the same "idea" I am.

One pill taken once to cure any cancer is not a significant 'idea' or 'market'. The good idea would be how to make such a pill, and then the 'market' would be quite new.

I count aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, Benzocaine, etc. as great ideas for alleviating pain. I don't count the market for alleviating pain as a meaningful 'idea', but you seem to be.

Your new definition for an 'idea' actually can have some value in Web 2.0: It is not very clear just what people want from Web 2.0, the 'social graph', etc. so that a guess at what they want and how to provide it, even if all the necessary technology is trivial, might be a valuable 'idea'. There seems to be some progress here at

http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-networ...

Still, this definition of an 'idea' is strange, new, very narrow, and in strong conflict with centuries of important history and nearly everything else in 'ideas' today from 'creative' in ads to the USPTO, DoD, NSF, and NIH funded projects, pharmaceutical research, and much more.

I have one more idea: Send Jane Fonda and Al Guru to Japan!