Invention
In 2006, at the age of 3, Sam Houghton saw his father sweeping their back yard using two different brooms: one to clear up the larger leaves and twigs and another to pick up finer debris. Believing that there must be an easier way to do the job, Hougton strapped two different brooms together with a large rubber band.
Houghton's father, Dr Rev Mark Houghton (a patent attorney) was impressed by the invention. On 14 October 2006 he filed a patent application at the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) naming Sam as the sole inventor. A patent was granted on 2 April 2008 when Sam was 5 years old. Sam's family in West Lancashire are very proud.
Patent applications do not always record ages but a spokesperson for the UKIPO said that they have "never come across anyone as young as Sam who has been successful in their application and believe he is the youngest yet".
Read more about this topic: Sam Houghton
Famous quotes containing the word invention:
“A sudden silence in the middle of a conversation suddenly brings us back to essentials: it reveals how dearly we must pay for the invention of speech.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Correspondences are like smallclothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection,—for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)