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The zipper on your jacket traces to Sundback 1913. The ballpoint in your drawer descends from Biro 1938. Your phone touches thousands of patented inve...

Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by hours in 1876, and litigation over the telephone ran 600 cases. Marconi won radio patents but lost in co...

Jonas Salk, asked who owned the polio vaccine patent, reportedly asked whether one could patent the sun. Tim Berners-Lee gave the World Wide Web away ...

A patent grants a 20-year monopoly from filing in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. It is territorial: a US patent stops nothing in Jap...

Mary Anderson patented the windshield wiper in 1903 after watching trolley drivers struggle in snow. Josephine Cochrane patented the dishwasher in 188...

After 20 years, anyone may practice the invention: aspirin, zippers, and jet engines are all open now. Generic drugs are the clearest case: patent cli...