Patent Collections
Curated lists of landmark patents.
Hand-picked sets of the patents that built the internet, defined the smartphone, and rewrote modern medicine — each explained in plain English.
All Collections
6 collectionsWeb Foundations
Patents That Built The Internet
The protocols, algorithms, and architectures that made the modern web possible — from public-key cryptography and packet networks to the link graph that powers search.
Touch Era
Patents That Made Apple
The multi-touch gestures, bounce-back scrolling, and unlock metaphors that defined the iPhone era — and triggered the largest design-patent battles in tech history.
Machine Learning
Foundational AI Patents
The architectures behind the AI boom — from early neural-network training methods to the Transformer attention mechanism that powers every modern language model.
Power Pioneers
Tesla's Original Patents
Nikola Tesla's late-1800s electrical patents that gave the world alternating current, the induction motor, and the polyphase system — alongside the contemporaries who electrified the modern age.
Modern Medicine
Pharma Patents That Changed Medicine
The molecular tools that rewrote what medicine can do — recombinant DNA, PCR amplification, CRISPR gene editing, and the modified-nucleoside chemistry behind mRNA vaccines.
Free To Use
Patents Now Public Domain
Landmark inventions whose patents have expired — Velcro, the transistor, the integrated circuit, and more. The science is now free for anyone to build on.