Five Inventors who Chose not to Patent

Wilhelm Roentgen: refused to commercially exploit his discovery of X-rays.

Jonas Salk: when asked who owned the patent for the polio vaccine he had developed in 1952, he replied ‘The people. Could you patent the sun?’

John Walker: declined to patent the matches he invented in 1827, or ‘sulphuretted peroxide strikables’ as the yard-long sticks were described.

Pierre and Marie Curie: refused to patent their process for refining radium. Marie declared that radium ‘is a natural chemical, it is for the people’.

Volvo: the Swedish car manufacturer made its ‘lap and diagonal’ seatbelt freely available to competitors.