Stories from the patent record
Unusual, notable, and historically significant US patents — the inventions that changed everything, the ones that were never built, and a few that should never have been granted.
A Toilet for Automatically Exhausting Odious Air
An 1898 patent for a self-venting toilet seat that drew foul air directly into the chimney — a Victorian solution to a Victorian problem.
Read the story →Recent stories
Levi Strauss Sold the Fabric. A Latvian Tailor Invented the Rivets — and Couldn't Afford the Patent Fee.
Jacob Davis was a Reno tailor whose customers kept splitting their pockets. He started hammering harness rivets into the corners. When copycats appeared he wanted a patent, needed sixty-eight dollars he didn't have, and wrote to his fabric supplier.
Read the story →
The Bottle Cap Made Him Rich. Then He Told an Employee to Invent Something People Throw Away.
William Painter solved the problem of sealing carbonated drinks with a crimped metal cap that cost almost nothing and was ruined by opening. He then gave a struggling salesman named King Gillette one piece of advice, and it created the razor business.
Read the story →
Every Metallurgist Told Gillette His Razor Blade Was Impossible. It Took Six Years and an MIT Machinist.
King Gillette wanted a steel blade thin enough to throw away and hard enough to shave with. Experts at MIT told him it could not be made. He kept at it for six years, sold 51 blades the first year, and 12 million four years later.
Read the story →
The Trampoline Was Built From a Circus Idea, Named After a Spanish Word, and Used to Train Astronauts
George Nissen was a teenage gymnast who watched trapeze artists bounce off the safety net and wondered why the bounce was the boring part. He built a rig in his garage, and the military and NASA found uses for it he never intended.
Read the story →
An Eleven-Year-Old Left His Soda on the Porch Overnight and Invented the Popsicle
Frank Epperson mixed powdered soda and water on a cold San Francisco night in 1905 and forgot the cup outside with the stirring stick still in it. He waited eighteen years to patent it, then sold the rights and spent the rest of his life regretting it.
Read the story →
Anna Connelly Patented the Fire Escape in 1887, and Cities Started Requiring Them
American cities were building upward faster than they could evacuate. Anna Connelly, one of the earliest women to hold a US patent, proposed an external bridge between rooftops with railings — an escape route that did not depend on the burning stairwell.
Read the story →
Silly Putty Was a Wartime Attempt to Replace Rubber. It Failed at Everything Except Bouncing.
Japan captured the rubber-producing regions of Asia and the United States needed a synthetic substitute urgently. A General Electric chemist dropped boric acid into silicone oil and got a substance that stretched, snapped, bounced, and was useless for tires.
Read the story →
Corn Flakes Were an Accident at a Health Sanitarium, and the Brothers Never Spoke Again
The Kellogg brothers left boiled wheat sitting for a day, rolled it anyway, and got flakes instead of dough. One brother wanted it to stay a bland health food. The other added sugar and built a cereal empire. They sued each other for decades.
Read the story →
The Supreme Court Invalidated the Pencil-With-an-Eraser Patent, and Set a Rule Still Used Today
Hymen Lipman patented sticking an eraser on the end of a pencil in 1858 and sold the rights for a fortune. The Supreme Court threw the patent out, ruling that combining two known things that each keep doing their own job is not an invention.
Read the story →
Sarah Boone Was Born Enslaved. In 1892 She Patented the Ironing Board You Still Use.
Flat boards laid across chairs could not press a fitted sleeve or a curved bodice without creasing everything else. Sarah Boone, one of the first Black women in America to receive a patent, gave the board a narrow padded shape that fit the garment.
Read the story →
Scotch Tape Exists Because 1920s Car Painters Kept Ruining Their Own Work
Two-tone paint jobs were the fashion, and the only way to mask a line was butcher paper and harsh glue that peeled the finish off when removed. A 3M lab assistant heard a body shop swearing about it and spent two years fixing it.
Read the story →
A Father Cut Holes in a Plastic Ball So His Son Could Throw a Curve in a Small Backyard
David Mullany watched his twelve-year-old wreck his arm trying to throw curveballs with a taped-up tennis ball. He took some plastic spheres from a perfume-packaging factory, cut slots in them with a razor, and solved it on the eighth try.
Read the story →