Earlier Inventions


Television was first invented in the 1920s.

Can you imagine a world without airplanes? Or without television? In 1899 the commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents said, "everything that can be invented has been invented." If he had been right, today there would be no television, computers, space shuttles, or popsicles! Everything new or unique that has been made by people is an invention. People have been inventing since the human race began and still continue to invent today. August is National Inventors' Month. Throughout this month people can learn lots more about inventors and all types of inventions!
The Idea
How do people form ideas for inventions? There is an old saying that "Necessity is the Mother of Invention." This means that people often see a need for a certain item or process and decide to invent something to fill that need. Inventors need to plan for a long time and have to try many times before they can get their invention to work properly.
For centuries, people had been trying to build a machine that could fly. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright spent many years building balloons and kites before they built the first airplane. Their invention was very special because it was the first flying machine that was heavier than air and could be controlled by the pilot. The first flight took place on December 17, 1903 and lasted 12 seconds. The Wright Brothers’ plane, the Flyer, was an important invention because it marked the beginning of human flight.


Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Glass negatives from the Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (reproduction number LC-USZ62-6166A)

The first airplane flight, December 17, 1903.
Not all inventions are planned. Some of the most useful products in the world today were created accidentally. In 1928 Alexander Fleming discovered the mold Penicillium notatum. By accident, he had left a sample of bacteria open, and the mold contaminated it. Fleming noticed that the bacteria surrounding the mold had died. He called the new substance penicillin. Several years later, some scientists discovered that they could use penicillin to treat bacterial infections. Fleming’s accidental discovery led to the beginning of the use of antibiotics (a type of medicine to treat infections), which are still an important part of medicine today.
The Patenting Process
When people have designed a new product or process, they want to make sure that no one else can copy it. In order to do this, inventors in the United States can apply for a patent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A patent grants an inventor exclusive rights to make and sell the invention. This means that no one else can use your new product or process without your permission. If someone wants to use your patented invention, they will have to pay you a permission fee to do so. A patent lasts for up to twenty years. After that, anyone can use your invention without your permission or paying a fee.
In order to apply for a patent, the inventor has to do some research to make sure that the invention is new and unique. After that, the inventor sends an application to the Patent Office explaining the invention in detail. An examiner at the Patent Office will carefully look through the application to make sure that the invention is new and useful. This can take a long time, and it is usually several months before a patent is issued to the inventor. Thousands of patents are issued every year. The very first patent was issued in 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a new way of making soap!
Amazing Inventions!
We use thousands of inventions everyday. The following are some of the most popular inventions developed recently:
World Wide Web
Millions of people use the World Wide Web (WWW) every day at home, at school, and in the office. Tim Berners-Lee came up with the idea for the WWW while working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. While at CERN, Berners-Lee found it difficult to share information with other scientists, and created the Web as a new way to share information. This new graphical system was very easy to use and allowed information to be shared all around the world using the Internet. The World Wide Web was first introduced in 1991, and is the fastest growing part of the Internet today.
DVD
A company named Matshusita first introduced Digital Video Disc (DVD) in 1995. It can store more information than a compact disc (CD), and has already begun to replace VHS videotapes. There are two main types of DVD: DVD-Video and DVD-Audio. DVD-Video is the disc that many people are familiar with from watching movies in their homes. DVD-Audio is similar to a music CD. Both types can also be used on a computer and will probably gradually replace CD-ROM. DVD allows a large amount of high-quality information to be stored at little cost.
Cellular Telephones
If you look around, you will see many people having conversations on cellular telephones or cell phones. Cell phones were first introduced in 1947. AT&T and Bell Labs came up with the idea for certain radio frequency areas to be divided into "cells" to allow more phone service. In 1973 the first cell-phone call was made. In 1977 AT&T and Motorola started to build a cellular telephone market. It took many years before cell phones reached the high level of service that exists today. There are now more than 100 million cell phone users in the United States.
Thousands of creative people come up with ideas for new inventions every year. There are so many new and interesting products that each year a famous American magazine votes on its favorite inventions. In 2002, the "phone tooth" was chosen as a favorite. This is a tiny device placed in a person’s tooth so that they can receive telephone calls in secret. The device converts information into vibrations that travel from the tooth to the ear. Only the person with the "phone tooth" can hear the information! What will be the next exciting invention? Only time can tell!