Journeys of Innovation

Each month, the USPTO seeks to inspire and encourage innovation by sharing relatable stories that chronicle the journeys of inventors and entrepreneurs. We shed light on where they got their start, the challenges they faced, and what it took to bring their ideas to fruition and their brands to life. The stories also emphasize the importance of creating and protecting intellectual property, and the critical role it plays in innovation.

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Browse all stories below, or search for a name or story title.

Ralph Teetor is pictured next to a vintage car illustration and an old newspaper headline clipping that reads "a blind inventor develops car speed-control device."
Featured this month
Ralph Teetor
Inventor Ralph Teetor used his hands to “see” and solve everyday challenges
18 min read
Full story
Composite image of a young woman in front of a medical device with patent text and images overlaid.
Katia Avila Pinedo
17 min read
Sumita Mitra wearing her National Inventors Hall of Fame medal, in front of images of a painting of grapes and nanoparticles.
Sumita Mitra
17 min read
a 19th century black and white portrait of a very studious Black man wearing glasses superimposed in an image of documents on a drafting table
Lewis Latimer
15 min read
Surgeon and researcher Dr. Charles Drew sitting in front of a microscope while wearing a white lab coat.
Dr. Charles Drew
26 min read
A portrait of Maria Telkes superimposed on a background of her patent drawings.
Dr. Maria Telkes
23 min read
Photos of Robert Pelham and Miriam Benjamin and James Wormley’s U.S. patent no. 242,091 for a life saving apparatus overlaid on a detailed, colorized map of Washington, D.C.
James Wormley, Miriam Benjamin, and Robert Pelham
19 min read
Duane Sander and Al Kurtenbach standing next to each other and smiling in front of dark green pine trees. Sander wears a tan dress shirt without tie and Kurtenbach wears a blue polo shirt with a Daktronics logo. 2023. Photo by David Kadas/USPTO.
Aelred "Al" Kurtenbach and Duane Sander
19 min read
An elderly man wearing a blue collared shirt and black eyeglasses blows bubbles towards the camera using a battery-powered bubble gun.
Eddy Goldfarb
20 min read
Garrett Morgan with a medal pinned to his suit jacket alongside drawings from his smoke hood and traffic signal patent
Garrett Morgan
19 min read
Portrait of Dr. Robert Bryant smiling and in a white button up shirt with a blue lanyard
Dr. Robert Bryant
15 min read
Chemist in lab coat and safety goggles surrounded by lab equipment
Dr. Norma Alcantar
11 min read
Woman in blue dress stands in front of a museum display of Gatorade inventor
Phoebe Cade Miles and Dr. James Robert Cade
15 min read
Francisco Laboy and Vanessa Carballido, co-founders of Genmoji, standing in front of a backdrop that reads “GES Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019 United States | The Netherlands.”
Vanessa Carballido Clerch and Francisco Laboy Colondres
19 min read
A black and white photograph of a woman and her young son centered on the left and superimposed on top of a 1980s Liquid Paper print advertisement.
Bette Nesmith Graham
11 min read
A man stands in front of an aquatically-cultured taro field in Hawaii with mountains in the background
Olin Kealoha Lagon
23 min read
A male high school student wearing a white t-shirt sits at a table with a trifold poster board in the background detailing his garbage can platform invention.
Damian Earley
12 min read
Bathed in sunshine, a young girl with a bowl-cut wearing a jeans jumper and socks, cozily curls up on a pillowy, pastel-floral window seat and reads to her doll from a book in her lap. Several additional books whose covers match the doll by her side are strewn about.
Pleasant Rowland
23 min read
Black and white photos of Henry Baker and George Washington Murray, two African American men wearing suits and ties, with a handwritten list of inventors and their patents in the background
Henry Baker and George Washington Murray
16 min read
Three fashionably dressed white women surrounding a desk, posing and admiring posters of Page Boy store fronts
The Frankfurt sisters
10 min read
Three women with dark tan skin, brown hair, and long neutral-colored long sleeve tops smiling at a dinner table set with food, wine, and flowers.
Tanya Bryant
13 min read
Tara Astigarraga stands in front of the red and green cliffs of the Grand Canyon, smiling and facing the camera. She wears sunglasses on the top of her head and a gray and white tank top with an outline of the state of Oklahoma and the words “Choctaw” written in cursive.
Tara Astigarraga
11 min read
Two employees stand side by side at a counter wearing beige aprons with the Bitty and Beau's logo. They smile at each other and link arms. Coffee machines are in the background.
Amy and Ben Wright
15 min read
Daniela Blanco, a brown-haired young Latino woman, wears a white lab coat, safety glasses, and plastic gloves as she stands amid chemistry equipment in a well stocked lab. She pauses her experiment momentarily to smile at the camera.
Daniela Blanco
22 min read
Two young teenagers wearing Camp Invention t-shirts in a school hallway
Mika’il and Ayaan Naqvi
14 min read
With a colorful purple buzzcut, tank top, and sunglasses, scientist Natalia Bilenko smiles in the sun and heat as she works alongside others to assemble metal struts and wiring to form the sculpture “Dr.Brainlove.”
Natalia Bilenko
12 min read
In a white lab coat, Dr. Patricia Bath smiles into the camera.
Patricia Bath
10 min read
A middle-aged woman in a silk dress sitting in a chair while examining a typewriter
Beulah Louise Henry
16 min read
 Gitanjali Rao presenting at a white board during the 3M competition
Gitanjali Rao
16 min read
Lanny Smoot smiles while twisting a knob on a large machine as a Walt Disney Company employee
Lanny Smoot
23 min read
Patent #9,511,833 received by Doug Scott and students for their ROV ice rescue robot.
Doug Scott
18 min read
In typical Victorian dress, Samuel Allen poses for a formal portrait photograph.
Samuel Leeds Allen
14 min read
An older man, George Gillespie, in full military uniform with several medals, including the Medal of Honor pinned to his lapel.
George Gillespie
17 min read
Debbie Sterling and two girls play with GoldieBlox on the floor.
Debbie Sterling
25 min read
Johnny Pacheco sits on cushions and faces the camera. He wears an embroidered linen shirt.
Johnny Pacheco
11 min read
Audrey Sherman poses in her stairwell with the plaques she received from 3M for her patents.
Audrey Sherman
16 min read
Kavita Shukla holding sheets of FreshPaper in a carton that says “fresh for all” at a farmers market in front of a table advertising FreshPaper
Kavita Shukla
18 min read
Maude Adams wearing a tunic, skirt, sash, and beads stands at three-quarters profile, framed by trees in the background, and looks off to the right.
Maude Adams
16 min read
The Kinnos team poses in scrubs around the USAID logo.
Kinnos
20 min read
Jim and Jane Henson pose with several puppets.
Jim Henson
9 min read
United States postage stamp showing the trefoil badge and Juliette Gordon Low in a Girl Scout uniform.
Juliette Gordon Low
12 min read
Arlyne Simon stands in front of two body scan images.
Arlyne Simon
22 min read
Lex and Santiago pose on either side of a vintage letter press with framed cards in the background.
Lex Monson
15 min read
Marissa Streng holds her hands out toward her dog Mojo.
Marissa Streng
13 min read
garrett brown sitting in middle of evolution of six chairs in white studio
Garrett Brown
17 min read
Headshot of Marian Croak
Marian Croak
18 min read
Sangeeta Bhatia is pictured in front of a shelf filled with bottles and other lab equipment.
Sangeeta Bhatia
14 min read
Portrait of Hinda Miller, Polly Smith, and Lisa Lindahl.
Hinda Miller, Polly Smith, and Lisa Lindahl
13 min read
A man in a white coat works with equipment in a laboratory.
Percy Julian
11 min read
Martine Rothblatt(excitedly jumping)  and the team from Tier one engineering proudly celebrating in front red Electric helicopter that, with the word lung written on it, huge smile, that just set  Guinesss World Record  being awarded plaque
Martine Rothblatt
17 min read
Floyd Smith parachute exhibit and the accompanying virtual skydive video
Floyd Smith
10 min read
 Jackie Quinn examines a piece of equipment on the ground with four team members working in the background
Jackie Quinn
17 min read
Susann Keohane and co-worker at the IBM aging in place environment/lab with the friendly looking Multi-Purpose Eldercare Robot Assistant (IBM MERA), a first of a kind Watson-enabled application designed to aid the elderly and assist caregivers with real-time information about their health.
Susann Keohane
12 min read
Shawn Springs holds two helmets and poses in front of a wall of helmets.
Shawn Springs
10 min read
A left hand rests on a tabulation machine, and a right hand picks up a card.
Herman Hollerith
8 min read
Jim West in a laboratory with three of his graduate students.
Jim West
9 min read
Bob Metcalfe holding an Ethernet cable
Bob Metcalfe
12 min read
Rory Cooper  in leaned back in a racing chair on a red track, leaned down to become aerodynamic, pushing himself to win
Rory Cooper
12 min read
Image: 1950s KitchenAid illustrated advertisement of a housewife and husband excitedly admiring their new dishwasher. I the top right, dishes magically float from a hospital and industrial dishwasher into their household dishwasher.
Josephine Cochrane
11 min read
Portrait of Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin
12 min read
Image: The Black and Decker cordless Lunar Drill operated by an astronaut on a simulated surface of moon
Carroll Gantz
8 min read
Young founders of Agrospheres sitting casually on a couch
Payam Pourtaheri and Ameer Shakleel
9 min read
Image: Helmeted U.S. soldiers look out over the prow of a Higgens boat as it navigates crashing waves towards the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
Andrew Higgins
7 min read
Image: Port City® Brewing Company founders Bill and Karen Butcher in the brewery’s taproom hold six packs of some of their registered trademark beers, including, from left, Optimal® Wit, Metro Red®, Monumental® IPA, and Integral® IPA.
Bill and Karen Butcher
6 min read
Image: Chemist Frances Arnold holds a beaker with yellow liquid up to the light.
Frances Arnold
9 min read
Image: Johnson plays around with a Super Soaker® while wearing a shirt patterned with images of his famous creation.
Lonnie Johnson
15 min read
Image: Irina Buhimschi and Cherry Murray speak on a panel at the US Capitol on empowering women
Irina Buhimschi and Cherry Murray
7 min read
Image: Crops being irrigated in the California Imperial Valley, circa 1919.
Harriet Strong
6 min read
Image: Student studying at night using solar lights
Steve Katsaros
6 min read