4/4 Nipkow could not capitalise on the idea at the time, but the patent record did what it is meant to do. It fixed priority, published a concept, and preserved it until the surrounding technology finally caught up.

3/4 Decades later, that concept became a key stepping stone from laboratory experiments to early television.

2/4 The inventive leap was not a specific television set, but a principle for remote vision. Convert an image into a sequenced stream of picture elements, transmit it as an electrical signal, then reconstruct the scene at the receiving end.

3/3 This patent marks an early step on the road to the modern polygraph. It reflects how lie detection technology evolved through practical engineering, better recording methods, and the drive to standardise what had been improvised experiments.

2/3 Keeler’s device, known as the Emotograph, turned physiological reactions into a readable trace, using instrumentation and a chart recorder to capture changes that would otherwise vanish in the moment.

3/3 It was part wartime pragmatism, part long game vision, reducing reliance on scarce metals and linking industry to agriculture. The prototype never reached production, but the patent reads today like an early chapter in renewable composites and lightweight vehicle design.

2/3 Ford was chasing a material shift, not just a new frame. The project that became known as the soybean car explored a lightweight, plastic bodied vehicle, built around a tubular steel chassis and fitted with moulded panels made from plant based fibres and resins.

2/2 Spalding’s goal was practical office arithmetic made mechanical, with a design meant to be simple, affordable, and reliable.
The patent sits on the early pathway from bookkeeping aids to calculators and, eventually, computers.

3/3 Latimer was a self taught African American inventor who had little access to formal education. His career is a reminder that inventive skill is not reserved for the well connected, it can be built through persistence, craft, and hard won expertise.

2/3 Often described as a precursor to air conditioning, it pointed toward a future where indoor air could be cooled and made healthier at the same time.

4/4 Klement’s 1929 filing matured into a granted right, and the idea went on to shape a widely used European plug system. Even the name Schuko became part of the IP story, protected and managed as a trademark.

3/4 Patents helped capture those practical interface solutions and turn them into something that could be reproduced, licensed and widely adopted.

2/4 It is a useful reminder in innovation history that progress often comes from standardising the small things. As electricity spread into homes and workplaces, the question was not only how to generate power, but how to connect devices reliably and consistently.