...that the inventor of the electric motor was a blacksmith named Thomas Davenport? Described as "a brilliantly unsuccessful inventor", Davenport invented the first rotary electric motor. In 1836 he headed out -- on foot -- from his Vermont home to file a patent application at the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. By the time he got there, he had squandered away his money and couldn't afford the $30 filing fee so he turned around and went home. When he later mailed in his application with money he'd raised, the Patent office was destroyed in a fire. He did finally get credit for his invention on Feb. 5, 1837.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7349532 | Picture and video message center system A message originator sends a picture or video message to a message center along with caller identifying information. The message is stored in a memory and transmitted to a wireless picture phone, PDA or portable computing device, or stored at the message center in a... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7310416 | Method and apparatus for improved personal communication devices and systems A system for adding or updating contact data in a wireless communication device, cellular telephone, pager or personal digital assistant (PDA) is shown. Contact data associated with actual or potential communicants may be entered into a database in the wireless comm... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7308088 | Method and apparatus for improved personal communication devices and systems Contact data in a database for a wireless personal communication device are remotely updatable from, or transferable between, a computer system using a radio frequency connection. New contact data, and changes or updates to existing contact data, are input at the co... | 12/11/2007 |
| 7305076 | Method and apparatus for improved paging receiver and system A wireless information communication system and method, such as a paging network, that provides caller identification information transmitted from the public switched telephone network to a pager, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a portable computing device, or per... | 12/04/2007 |
| 7286658 | Method and apparatus for improved personal communication devices and systems A method for use in a wireless communication device, cellular telephone, pager or personal digital assistant (PDA) is shown in which Caller ID data originating from the public switched telephone network or other caller identifying data is received in a paging signal... | 10/23/2007 |
| 7266186 | Method and apparatus for improved paging receiver and system Contact data in a phonebook database for a personal communication device are remotely updateable from, or transferable between, a computer system using a wireless radio frequency connection. New contact data, and changes or updates to existing contact data, are inpu... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7257210 | Picture phone with caller id Pictures are transmitted to a wireless picture phone with caller ID from a message originator and used by the message recipient to identify who is to sending the picture. In one embodiment the pictures are sent to a message center along with the caller ID of the mes... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7254223 | Method and apparatus for improved personal communication devices and systems Contact data in a database for a wireless personal communication device are remotely updatable from, or transferable between, a computer system using a radio frequency connection. New contact data, and changes or updates to existing contact data, are input at the co... | 08/07/2007 |
| 7251318 | Method and apparatus for improved personal communication devices and systems An apparatus and method provide a database in a pager that contains menus that may be displayed on a pager display. A paging service sends a page including an identification, retrieves a menu from the pager database and displays the menu. The pager responds to the p... | 07/31/2007 |