Tom Connor

Jim Downey

This informative and occasionally bizarre collection of American inventions will help you discover successful and significant ideas—along with the frivolous and utterly useless ones lost to history. Innovation and entrepreneurism appear inextricably woven into the American DNA. Throughout American history, the great inventors and innovators gazed into the future and saw the products and services that would transform the world. While passionate about creating this new thing called a democracy, our Founding Fathers were also driven to change the way humans lived and worked—to complete everyday tasks faster, easier, and more efficiently. As of 2018, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had granted its ten millionth patent. But with over 500,000 applications now being filed annually, fewer than half of these applicants will be granted patents and far fewer still—an estimated one percent—will realize commercial success, according to the Office. Some are flawed by mistakes or missing details, others too ridiculous to take seriously, still others simply ahead of their time. From the brightest and most innovative to the wackiest, most bizarre, and downright crazy, this collection of 100 patents includes funny and informative descriptions and original illustrations, all the while letting you in on what most successful patents have in common, what inspired their creators, and how great inventors view the world.

The Best and Brightest, Dumbest and Dimmest Inventions in American History

Brainstorms and Mindfarts

Jim Downey, who served three tours in Vietnam with the US Air Force, compares his travels with those of his father before and during World War II in this inspiring memoir that celebrates family, valor, and military life. His quest started after he received a questionnaire form an Air Force Fighter Squadron, which led him to his father’s stack of military orders, other papers, and pictures. Major James A. Downey Jr. had never disclosed the details about his service during World War II, and the research turned into an eye-opening experience for his son. Major Downey was in the Philippines and China in the 1930s, areas that his son would get to know well decades later on his trips to Vietnam. The elder Downey also spent time in Germany and was one of the few sent back to the Philippines for the planed X-Day invasion of Japan. Join a son as he walks in the footsteps of his father, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally—discovering insights about himself and his family in Horses and Helicopters.

A Son’s Tribute to his Father and Their Shared Military Service

Horses and Helicopters

Well, now you've gone and done it America. You've elected Donald K. Trump President and the U.S. will never again be the same! The problem for all of us is that he's got plans, lots of them--the list reads like a bad acid trip: Nominating Bernie Madoff for Secretary of the Treasury; "Trumpifying" the Constitution; making personal real estate deals with Vladimir Putin; staging a hostile takeover of one of America's great news magazines - to name just a few. In this "inaugural" (and wholly fictitious) issue of Trump TIME Magazine, President-Elect Trump promises to re-make America in his own image - and it ain't pretty. Don't like it? Move to Canada, losers!

Parody

President Trump

An informative and occasionally bizarre collection of American inventions, products, and services of the past, present, and future from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, including the historically significant and commercially successful to the altogether frivolous and utterly useless! Innovation and entrepreneurism appear inextricably woven into the American DNA. Throughout American history, the great inventors and innovators gazed into the future and saw the products and services that would transform the world. While passionate about creating this new thing called a democracy, our Founding Fathers were also driven to change the way humans lived and worked -- to complete everyday tasks faster, easier, and more efficiently. As of 2018, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had granted its ten millionth patent. But with over 500,000 applications now being filed annually, fewer than half of these applicants will be granted patents and far fewer still -- an estimated one percent -- will realize commercial success, according to the Office. Some are flawed by mistakes or missing details, others too ridiculous to take seriously, still others simply ahead of their time. From the brightest and most innovative to the wackiest, most bizarre, and downright crazy, this collection of 100 patents includes funny and informative descriptions and original illustrations, all the while letting you in on what most successful patents have in common, what inspired their creators, and how great inventors view the world.

Jim Downey

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