Buzz
When you come up with something original, it's crucial to patent it right away, or someone else might take advantage of your idea. This has occurred time and again in history. Although the inventors listed below may have earned a small amount for their work, most saw little or no financial gain.
10. John Walker Matches
You might have assumed that people have been using matches to start fires for centuries or even millennia, but the invention of the friction match actually took place in 1827.
John Walker, an English inventor and chemist, created the matches we use today and began selling them in his hometown of Stockton. He originally referred to them as “friction lights,” but they were commonly nicknamed “lucifers.” Despite his creation, Walker was never fully satisfied with his invention and chose not to patent it. He eventually passed on his business to Sir Isaac Holden, who later marketed and sold matches globally. Because of this, Holden is often mistakenly credited with the invention of matches, while Walker, who passed away in 1859, was only recognized posthumously when his original ledger was discovered.
9. Benjamin Bradley Steam Engine For Warships
Benjamin Bradley was born into slavery in the United States during the 19th century. He was secretly taught by the children of his owner, showing a remarkable aptitude for math and reading. By the early 1830s, he had earned recognition as an engineer and even built a small steam engine using discarded materials he found around the house where he worked.
Bradley went on to work for the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he contributed to various experiments. Although he earned a full salary, he was only permitted to keep $5 per month, with the rest being taken by his owner.
Bradley managed to save most of his earnings and eventually built a steam engine large enough to power a warship. As a slave, he was unable to patent his invention, which later powered America’s first steam-powered warship. He eventually saved enough money to purchase his freedom, but was never able to profit from his groundbreaking creation.
8. Ron Klein Magnetic Credit Card Strip
Before the advent of account number imprints, merchants had to refer to a large printout of credit accounts to verify charge cards. Klein recognized this as a problem that could be solved using the newly developed magnetic tape technology from the recording industry. He invented a method of encoding basic information, like account numbers, onto magnetic tape and affixed it to the back of credit cards.
Although Klein never made much from his patent on the magnetic tape, he eventually amassed significant wealth from his other inventions. He has proudly called himself the Grandfather of Possibilities and continues to invent new creations to this day.
7. Benjamin T. Montgomery Steam-Operated Propeller
Ben Montgomery was born into slavery in Virginia and later sold to Joseph Davis, a Southern plantation owner in Mississippi. Davis's notoriety mainly came from being the older brother of Jefferson Davis, who would go on to become the president of the Confederate States of America. Montgomery, however, carved his own place in history by eventually taking over his owner’s shipping business along the Mississippi River.
To address the challenges of navigating the river’s varying depths, Montgomery devised a new method of angling a steam-powered propeller, allowing boats to navigate safely through shallow waters.
As a slave, Montgomery couldn’t patent his inventions. While Davis permitted his slaves to keep money earned commercially, Montgomery was never able to secure financial gain from his innovative propeller design. Nevertheless, he saved enough from his work to buy his freedom.
6. Mikhail Kalashnikov The AK-47
The most widely used automatic rifle in the world was designed by a man who simply wanted to serve his country with his work.
Mikhail Kalashnikov developed the AK-47 in 1947 while working as a small arms designer for the Soviet Union. This weapon has since armed countless soldiers, insurgents, freedom fighters, terrorists, and drug traffickers globally. It's estimated that there are currently 100,000,000 AK-47s in circulation. Due to the nature of his work in communist Russia, Kalashnikov never reaped the financial rewards that came from his design's widespread use.
In the months leading up to his death in 2013, Kalashnikov penned a remorseful letter seeking forgiveness from the Russian Orthodox Church, expressing his guilt for the lives lost because of his creation. He wrote, “The pain in my soul is unbearable. I keep asking myself the same unsolvable question: If my assault rifle took people’s lives, it means that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov . . . am responsible for people’s deaths.”
5. George Crum The Potato Chip
The potato chip might just be one of the few inventions born out of pure frustration.
While working as a chef at Moon’s Lake House in 1853, George Crum served a plate of French fries to a customer who criticized them for being too thick and soggy. Annoyed by the complaint, Crum decided to retaliate by slicing the potatoes so thin that they became crispy chips rather than the usual fries. The new creation was an instant success, and Crum made them so often that when he eventually opened his own restaurant, he had a bowl of them on every table. He named his invention “Saratoga Chips.”
Crum never sought a patent for his creation, and soon, various individuals and companies started packaging and selling potato chips worldwide.
4. Sir Christopher Cockerell The Hovercraft
While managing a shipping company he owned, Cockerell identified delays as a major issue. He theorized that if a craft could be lifted above the water's surface, it would experience no drag and could achieve faster speeds.
He spent years working on the hovercraft, using a vacuum cleaner and tin cans to experiment with his theory. After creating a proof-of-concept from balsa wood, he successfully patented his design. However, he struggled to sell the idea to the shipping or aviation industries, so he turned to the British government and persuaded them to consider the hovercraft for military uses.
The government took on the project but classified it, which restricted Cockerell’s ability to receive any public funding for his invention. After several years, the first full-scale hovercraft prototype was completed on June 11, 1959. Cockerell never earned any profit from the invention, which drained much of his savings, but he was later honored with an honorary doctorate and knighted by the Queen.
3. Alexey Pajitnov Tetris
Tetris is one of the most successful video games ever created, selling over 70 million copies and generating billions of dollars in revenue since its creation in 1984. Unfortunately for Alexey, he developed it while working in the former Soviet Union, a regime that didn’t allow personal ownership of creations. Instead, all inventions were considered government property.
The game was initially introduced to the West alongside the highly successful handheld gaming device, Game Boy, by Nintendo. However, Alexey saw no financial reward for his creation. While the Soviet government promised to revisit the issue of compensation after 10 years, the collapse of the USSR prevented this, and Alexey didn’t regain ownership of Tetris until 2004, long after the game's global popularity had faded—costing him millions of dollars in potential earnings.
2. Harvey Ball The Smiley
For those of us born after 1963, it may be hard to imagine that the world’s most iconic image—a yellow circle with a simple, yet timeless smiley face—had to be designed by someone. That someone was Harvey Ball, who came up with the design in just 10 minutes, earning him a modest sum of $45 (equivalent to $350 in 2016).
At the time, Ball was a freelance artist and was commissioned by State Mutual Life Assurance Company to create an image that would boost morale. His design was made into buttons for the company and later appeared on T-shirts, posters, and just about everything else, even becoming the inspiration for today’s emoticons. While the image has generated billions over the years, Ball only ever received that one initial payment.
1. Douglas Engelbart The Computer Mouse
In what he later called “the mother of all demos,” Engelbart showcased the computer mouse in 1968, along with other groundbreaking innovations such as hypertext, windows, shared screens, and even video conferencing. Despite holding more than 20 patents, he never patented the mouse itself. Engelbart created it in 1964 as an intuitive tool for interacting with computers, never fully realizing its vast commercial potential.
Engelbart was more focused on the potential of science and how computers could be used as tools for collaboration. The company he worked for, SRI, secured the patent for the mouse and later licensed it to Apple for roughly $40,000—none of which was passed on to Engelbart.
