Patently
The home of could-have-been’s and shouldn’t-have’s filed at patent offices.
Patently explores the convoluted contraptions and bewildering brainchildren of North America’s wannabe Edisons and Graham Bells. Some of these inventions arrived before their time, others aimed to solve problems that no one foresaw, nor apparently cared for. Others yet, it seems, well, we’re not entirely sure.
Peruse our inventory of irregular ideas – let them inspire your own creations, or at the very least, your own cocktail chatters.
Foot Warmers | 1877
Snow-Melting Machine | 1920
Snow Bikes | 1896-1908
Sandwich-sized Potato Chip | 2002
Smoking Doll | 1915
(and the feared ‘doll famine’ of the 1910s)
About the Author
Jensen Edwards is the failed inventor of the backseat sibling divider (patent not yet pending), a creation inspired by cross-country road trips as the youngest child of four. While he searches for the drawings made by his six-year-old self, he works as a communicator for the Nature Conservancy of Canada and as a freelance writer/researcher in Montreal, Que.
Patently 