Content

Milestones

IP in everyday life
Inventions that made history

Some inventions change the world, some just sweeten everyday life: a kaleidoscope of brilliant ideas, the story(s) of their creation and the people behind them.

Read more

Margaret Hamilton

Great inventors
Creative minds

Who is behind the inventions we encounter every day? What stories are hidden behind famous IP applications? Which personalities have influenced our lives with their creativity?

Read more

Royal and ancient trade marks
Brands with history

A googly-eyed mouse, a beer with a royal name, the oldest perfume manufacture or an "eternal" song: there are exciting stories behind many well-known brands.

Read more

Patents, brands & pop
IP rocks!

Did you know why the Beatles argued with a computer manufacturer for a long time? Or that the Queen guitarist is an inventive astrophysicist with a PhD? That Jimi Hendrix inspired several patents and brands? Bob Dylan named a whisky brand after a song?

Read more

Air and space pioneers
Flying high

Daredevil men in flying clunkers, death-defying aviators and the women who sent Apollo to the moon: We remember the early heroines and heroes of aviation and space travel - and the technology behind them.

Read more

Comic IP
Tintin´s quiff, Homer´s Duff: Brands in comics

A business empire that began with a mouse. A long anonymous cartoonist who is now considered the artist of the century. A doped Gaul, a Bavarian goblin, the legendary clear line and court cases over a drawn chav's favourite beer: comic culture is full of IP stories!

Read more

Automobile beginnings
The early age of auto

From the horseless carriage to the racing car: which innovations shaped the early history of road transport, which people drove things forward and the epoch-making patents behind them.

Read more

Computer pioneers
From Antikythera to Zuse: Milestones of early IT

From ancient shipwreck marvels to code-breaking "bombs" to creative AI, the history of computing machines is full of surprises and drama.

Read more

Re-inventing the wheel
100 years ago John Dunlop, the (re)inventor of the pneumatic tyre, died

In 1888, John Boyd Dunlop could no longer watch his son struggle on a tricycle with hard rubber tyres on the bumpy road surface in Belfast and invented the air-filled tyre for him. But Dunlop was not the first to make this invention. The patent Dunlop received should never have been granted.

Read more

Picture credits included in the individual articles.

Last updated: 22 June 2023