Famous And Inspiring Patent Holders

Famous and Inspiring Patent Holders

A novice inventor can be turned off easily by the patenting process. To be an innovator can be daunting for anyone: the inventor has to be the sole advocate for the product or process they invented. However, what the inventor doesn’t know is that famous inventors were also vulnerable and had to fight off impatience and insecurity. The stories of some of the most famous inventors may help an inventor by communicating they’re not alone.

Famous Inventor #1: Thomas Edison
Perhaps the most well-known inventor in history is Thomas Edison, the purported inventor of the light bulb. What many people don’t know is that Edison was not the inventor of the light bulb. The lighting device had been available for nearly fifty years before he worked on improving it. With his changes – a sturdy carbon filament, a vacuum inside, and a lower electricity current – the light bulb could be widely manufactured and used even in homes. Still, Edison spent many, many hours working on this project, trying hundreds of different variations of the light bulb before he came up with the version he’s famous for.

During Edison’s tenure as an inventor, he invented many things. Although his greatest challenge was the light bulb, he spent time working to improve the phonograph and discovered ways to implement his version of the phonograph with a device called the kinetoscope to make the first motion picture machine. Edison’s life was devoted to his creations, and he filed over 1,000 patents in his life. An inventor can learn much from his experience, especially that one don’t need to be a genius to be an inventor: Edison did not do well in school.

Famous Inventor #2: Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln is far from being known as an inventor. Instead, many claim that he was the greatest president in US history. What many don’t know is that he’s the only president to also be a patent owner. Since his childhood, Lincoln was incessantly curious. He always had a fascination with machines and how they worked. His talent wasn’t realized until he was forced to use a boat to travel after snows had melted and left the flat land covered with water. He found that when he used the boat to travel, often times it would get caught and flowing water would end up in the boat. Therefore, he decided to invent a bellow-type apparatus which would lift the boat up and away from getting caught under water. In 1849, he was issued patent number 6,469.

Famous Inventor #3: Mary Anderson
It’s not often that you’ll see a lot of information about a female inventor. However, women have invented many important devices in our world, including lasers, programming compilers, and even the popular HIV drug called AZT. However, perhaps the most ubiquitous invention made by a woman is the windshield wiper, developed by Mary Anderson.

Anderson did not set out to be an inventor. Instead, she led a life prior to her invention managing property and running a vineyard near Fresno, California. In the winter of 1903, she ventured to New York City to visit some friends. There, she took a trolley car and watched the operator constantly have to stop to wipe off snow and sleet from the windshield. Upon her return home, she designed a window-cleaning device in which she had a local company construct. Although she received a 17-year patent, it wasn’t until the patent expired and automobiles gained in popularity before the windshield wiper became well known.

Famous Inventor #4: Chester Greenwood
When it’s cold outside, the natural response would be to reach for the earmuffs. What isn’t widely known about earmuffs is that they were invented by a teenager. In 1873, 15 year-old Chester Greenwood was ice skating out on a pond near his home in Farmington, Maine. Although he was covered up, what he couldn’t stand was the way that his ears seemed to be the coldest part of his head. He tried wrapping them in a scarf, but the scarf eventually fell off. Therefore, he decided to cut a piece of wire, shape it around his head, and have his grandmother sew together some fur onto each end. Thinking he had a winning item, he constructed a pair out of steel and fur, and started selling them. The success of his product encouraged him to continue inventing. He received an impressive number of patents before his death in 1937.