Trending Patents

Granted March 2026

This patent describes a cleaning device for showerheads that uses a fixture with three or more separate internal compartments and channels to direct cleaning fluid to the showerhead's upper surfaces.

Granted November 2025

CILAG's patent details a surgical instrument that applies therapeutic energy to tissue, monitors its properties, then deploys staples, adapting the stapling based on the initial energy treatment and monitoring.

Granted June 2025

This patent describes a powered surgical stapler that can detect if some of its rechargeable battery cells are damaged while it's actually firing staples, helping ensure the procedure finishes safely.

Granted March 2024

This patent describes a surgical system that shows live video from inside the body and overlays important information about the surgical tool directly onto the screen, helping surgeons operate more precisely.

Granted October 2019

This patent describes a neural network architecture, known as the Transformer, that uses a "self-attention" mechanism to process sequences of information, like words in a sentence, by weighing the importance of different parts of the input to generate an output sequence.

Granted April 2014

This patent describes a method and system for precisely altering gene expression in eukaryotic cells, including human cells, using an engineered CRISPR-Cas9 system that targets and cleaves specific DNA sequences.

Granted May 2013

Loren Brichter's pull-to-refresh gesture — invented in the Tweetie app in 2008 — is the swipe-down interaction that triggers a reload in virtually every mobile app, acquired by Twitter for $40 million.

Granted February 2010

Apple's 2010 patent on unlocking a device by dragging a specific graphical image along a predefined path on a touchscreen, a gesture iconic with early iPhones.

Granted January 2009

Apple's 2009 patent describes how a touchscreen device uses clever rules, called heuristics, to figure out whether your finger movement means you want to scroll, pan, or switch items, often by looking at the very start of your touch.

Granted December 2008

Apple's 2008 patent describes how a touchscreen device can make a document or list appear to stretch and then snap back when a user scrolls past its natural edge, creating a satisfying elastic feel.

Granted April 2002

Google's 2006 patent describes the pay-per-click auction mechanism behind AdWords — where advertisers bid for keywords, ads are ranked by bid multiplied by quality, and Google only charges when someone clicks, creating the business model that funds the modern internet.

Granted September 2001

This patent describes a computer method for scoring web pages or other linked documents based on the importance of the pages that link to them, helping search engines find better results.

Granted July 2001

Amazon's 2001 patent describes item-to-item collaborative filtering — the 'customers who bought this also bought' algorithm that generates personalized recommendations in real time, responsible for an estimated 35% of Amazon's revenue.

Granted September 1999

Amazon's 1997 patent describes a method for buying an item online with just one click, by using previously stored customer and payment information, bypassing the traditional multi-step shopping cart process.

Granted November 1998

Microsoft's 1998 browser patent covers the integration of Internet Explorer into Windows — the technical mechanism that was at the heart of the United States v. Microsoft antitrust case, the most consequential legal action against a technology company in history.

Granted October 1998

This patent describes how a touch sensor, like a laptop touchpad, can tell the difference between one finger and two distinct fingers, enabling actions like clicking, dragging, and selecting.

Granted June 1998

Lou Montulli's 1998 Netscape patent describes the browser cookie — the mechanism that lets websites store small pieces of data on your computer so they can remember your login, shopping cart, and preferences across page loads.

Granted January 1996

John O'Sullivan and the CSIRO team's 1996 patent describes the multipath radio transmission technique that makes WiFi work in buildings — invented while trying to detect exploding mini black holes, it became the foundation of wireless networking.

Granted September 1994

This patent describes a system for early interactive computer networks, like Prodigy, that allowed personal computers to display information and perform services by fetching and storing small pieces of application code and data called 'objects' from a central network.

Granted March 1993

This 1993 patent describes a system for a customer to pay for and download digital audio or video files from a remote server to their own storage device using a phone line.

Granted April 1988

Philip Leder and Timothy Stewart's 1988 DuPont/Harvard patent on the OncoMouse describes the first genetically engineered animal ever patented — a mouse with an activated cancer gene, used to test cancer drugs.

Granted February 1988

Canon's 1977 bubble jet patent describes the thermal inkjet process — where a tiny heater vaporizes ink to form a bubble that ejects a droplet — discovered accidentally when a researcher touched a syringe of ink with a hot soldering iron.

Granted July 1987

This patent describes the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a fundamental process for making millions of copies of a specific DNA or RNA segment from a tiny sample, enabling its detection.

Granted December 1985

This patent describes a method for compressing data by finding the longest repeating sequences of characters, assigning them short codes, and building a dictionary of these sequences for both compression and decompression.