On January 29, 1886, a German engineer named Karl Benz quietly filed a patent that would help remake the modern world. The document, submitted to the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin, described a “vehicle powered by a gas engine.” It carried little fanfare at…
Read MoreOn January 19, 1915, a quiet but consequential patent filing helped tilt the modern city toward light. Georges Claude, a French engineer and industrial chemist, secured legal protection for the neon discharge tube as a device for advertising—transforming an obscure laboratory phenomenon into one…
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