Fun Facts About Patents You Might Not Know

While the world of intellectual property protection and patents can be quite complex and often serious, it’s good to remember that many inventions that we use every day have often come from a place of imagination and fun.

I’ve always enjoyed a good bit of trivia or ‘quiz nights’ (especially when accompanied by good food and drink). Recently, while binging some “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” I started wondering what a good patent trivia question may be. This led me down a rabbit hole of interesting patent facts. Below, I list some of the fun and unexpected facts about patents that sparked my curiosity, and hopefully some of yours too.

1. The First Patent Ever

The concept of patents goes way back, and (according to most sources that I consulted) the first recorded modern patent was granted by the city-state of Florence in 1421 to the architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi. The patent was directed to a new type of barge transportation system designed to transport marble along the Arno River (for construction of the Florence cathedral). The grant provided Brunelleschi the right to exclude all new means of transport on the Arno River for three years. Although Brunelleschi’s patent is often cited as the first, there is some historical debate, and it is probable that various kingdoms or localities around Europe were in the practice of granting official monopolies of one kind or another. The earliest known patent system was enacted in early renaissance Venice (as my colleague, Robert Donaldson, discussed in this article of 2023).

The Venetian Senate passed the first patent law, known as the Venetian Patent Statute, in 1474 that protected new and inventive devices in return for disclosure to the Venetian Republic. This initiative has been judged by historians to be the result of an attempt to revitalise the Republic and re-inject initiative and innovation at a time of economic decline.

2. Edison: The King of Patents (or is he?)

When we think of prolific inventors, one name stands out—Thomas (Alva) Edison. The inventor of the lightbulb, phonograph, and motion picture camera, Edison is said to have held an astounding 1,093 patents. His dedication to patenting his inventions was unparalleled, and he had a real knack for turning ideas into intellectual property.

Although 1,093 patents are a lot, Japanese inventor, Shunpei Yamazaki, is widely reported as the world’s top patent holder/inventor. Yamazaki is listed on a modest 12,587 U.S patents (as of September 2024). Yamazaki is the president and majority shareholder of research company Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL). Most of the patents he holds are in relation to computer display technology and held by SEL, with Yamazaki named either individually or jointly as inventor.

3. The Best-Known Patent Examiner?

Before becoming one of the greatest minds in physics, Albert Einstein worked as a patent examiner in the Swiss Patent Office. His job was to review technical patents, a role he took up while working on his special theory of relativity.

Einstein is widely regarded as the most famous patent examiner of all time (although I doubt that he was the best due to his rather intense “side hustles”). ?

4. “A Spring, a Spring, a Marvellous Thing!”

Many famous inventions came about by accident, the popsicle, Teflon, and the Post-it note, to name a few. The beloved Slinky toy is no exception. Naval engineer Richard James was working on a spring-based system to stabilise sensitive ship equipment in rough seas when one of his springs fell off a shelf and “walked” across the floor. He immediately saw its potential as a toy and together with his wife, Betty, set out to refine the design and bring it to market. After a lengthy process and numerous hurdles, James filed an application for a grant of a utility patent at the USPTO for the Slinky and titled it as a “toy and process of use” in 1946. The patent was granted in 1947.

Since then, the Slinky has delighted millions of children (and adults!) around the world.

5. Early Patents Required a Working Scale Model

From 1790 to 1880, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) required inventors to submit a working scale model of their invention along with their patent drawings and description (The United States Congress abolished the legal requirement for them in 1870, but the USPTO kept the requirement until 1880, when it deemed that models were no longer necessary except for perpetual motion devices and flying machines). These working scale models may be no larger than 12 inches on each side and had to demonstrate exactly how the invention worked.

After the Wright brothers demonstrated flight, the USPTO dropped the model requirement for flying machines. However, anyone submitting a perpetual motion patent application would still be required to provide a proof-of-concept model.

6. The Extremes – The Long and Short of it

The longest patent ever granted goes to one issued for Pseudo Random Number Generator (US patent no. 6,314,440). It comes in at a whopping 3,333 pages! Imagine being the person responsible for writing, reviewing, or even just reading all that text.

The shortest patent ever granted is for a “Metoprolol Succinate” (US patent no. 5,081,154). The patent is about half a page long – I’d happily draft or review this one!

A special mention goes out to the longest patent application which is said to be US20070224201A1 titled “Compositions and Methods for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Tumor”. It has 7,154 pages (even Google Patents took a while to load the application) and was abandoned by the applicant (probably because the Examiner did not want to read through it all during prosecution).

7. Wright or Wrong

The Wright brothers, famous for their pioneering work in aviation, weren’t just inventors—they were fierce protectors of their intellectual property and spent years fighting legal battles over their patents relating to controlled flight (essentially suing anyone they felt was infringing on their patents).

Many believed that the Wright Brothers’ enforcement of their patent rights was too aggressive and hindered the aviation industry in the US. So much so, that the US was forced to use French airplanes during World War I. Some scholars, however, dispute the idea that the patent battles waged by the Wright Brothers stifled innovation in the overall aviation market.

However, this litigious nature of the Wright Brothers almost led to their downfall—while they were out litigating, competitors, such as Glenn Curtiss, continued to design aircraft control methods that didn’t infringe on their patent and the Wright Brothers started to lag behind with their research and development.

In 1917, because some believed that the two major patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of airplanes needed during the war, a newly established National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organisation. This organisation effectively created a patent pool, and all aircraft manufacturers were required to join this association. Each member of the association was required to pay a comparatively small royalty for each airplane manufactured covered by aviation patents; most of the fees went to the Wright and Curtiss companies, until their respective patents expired.

8. The Sunken Yacht Patent (and Donald Duck’s Contribution!)

Karl Kroyer, a Danish inventor, patented a clever method for raising sunken ships by pumping buoyant balls into the hull. The patent was accepted in jurisdictions including Great Britain and Germany. However, his patent application in the Netherlands, much like the Titanic, hit an iceberg. Following detailed examination, one of their patent experts rejected the application as the claimed invention lacked novelty. The claimed method had already been disclosed in a Donald Duck cartoon strip entitled “The Sunken Yacht”. The cartoon illustrates how Donald Duck, with the help of Huey, Dewey and Louie, uses a very similar method to raise a ship.

Proof that sometimes great ideas go unrealised.

9. Rags to Riches (or close to it)

Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen started out making wooden toys in the early 1900s. But in 1932, he came up with a game-changing idea: interlocking bricks, originally called “Automatic Binding Bricks.” This simple, modular design became the heart of LEGO’s success. While the company has evolved and expanded over the years, the iconic brick system is still protected by a strong patent portfolio.

Trivia Results

While some of these stories might make patents seem like light-hearted fare, they point to the real value of protecting innovation. A single patented idea can change industries, bring joy (Slinky, anyone?), build future careers (hello Lego) or even revolutionise daily life. Patents give inventors the chance to safeguard their creativity (just ask the Wright Brothers) and turn ideas into tangible impact.

So, next time you read a comic, bump something off a table or work bench, or play with little fake bricks inside, remember to keep an eye out for the next great idea that might be right in front of you. Whether it’s something simple, like a toy or tool, or something groundbreaking, innovation can happen anywhere.

If you’re already on the commercialisation journey, or have a prototype you’d like to discuss protecting, please reach out to one of our attorneys via [email protected] or call +61 7 3369 2226.