The Good News about Patents: This is the spot to be. The bad news? There aren’t many results for the patents tag. Sorry. Nothing personal. Click on this box to see more in the archives.

Follow on Twitter Follow on Facebook
Tag results: Patents

Lord of the Ring Prevention

The evolution of the drink coaster, which started from not-so-modest roots to become the source of many bizarre patent filings.

Belt, Buckled

The legacy of the seat belt, the world’s most prevalent safety device, and the act of corporate goodwill that ensured everyone‘s car got the best design.

Power Struggle

The most quietly innovative thing that emerged from the latter half of the ’90s was the on-battery power meter. It was the subject of a complex patent battle.

Pressure-Fried Patents

Pondering the role that patents and trade secrets play in fast food, particularly the ones that helped enable the rise of the fried chicken sandwich wars.

Flying Patents

How the unidentified flying object inspired a flurry of flying saucer patents globally—and how one guy invented his flying saucer years before anyone else.

Let’s Lock Information Down

DRM, one of the internet’s dark arts, was already in the works—complete with epic patents—years before the existence of Napster gave it a business case.

When It Rains, It Pours

Umbrella design is an interesting conundrum. Sure, it could be better, but nobody's come up with a successful new design in hundreds of years. Why is that?
Tedium is a labor of love and appreciation.

Is it weird to say we love the internet? Because at Tedium, we love the internet—as a source of never-ending research, a vessel for new ideas, and a great historical deep dive. Since 2015, we’ve been throwing two newsletters a week into inboxes the world over, and count more than 12,000 regular readers. And we’d like to keep it going a while longer, so help by sponsoring an issue or supporting us on Patreon. But please: No backlink requests.

What is Tedium? | Support us on Patreon | Share your ideas! | Privacy Policy | Advertise With Us | RSS feed | Ernie on Mastodon

Disclosure: From time to time, we may use affiliate links in our content—but only when it makes sense. Promise.

Proudly built on Craft CMS using the Bulma framework.

Copyright © 2015-2022 Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet. All rights reserved. Please, try the fish.