Three men talk of the fascination and pains of their creations.
In 1899, Charles H. Duell, then commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, offered a quote for the ages by prematurely declaring, "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
More than 5 million patents later, Duell's shortsightedness seems glaring as the pace of invention has not diminished at all during the past century, but rather accelerated, in particular over the last 25 years. Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office receives more than 200,000 patent applications per year.