Artur Fischer from plastic materials (Polyamide) and is available in various shapes and sizes since 1958 (see Wall plug). Fischer held over 1100 patents and overtook Thomas Alva Edison, who held 1093 patents. Fischer also held 5867 trade rights and invented fischertechnik. Further inventions are (bone-)plugs for fixing bone fractures and one of Fischer’s most recent inventions is a gadget that makes it possible to hold and cut the top off an egg of any size. He got started on the problem when a hotel owner complained to him that his guests, on opening their boiled eggs for breakfast, always made a
Biological patents in the United States these patents cannot be applied to the naturally occurring genes in humans or any other naturally occurring organism. The "Chakrabarty patent", owned by General Electric, was filed in 1972 and issued in 1981 after the Supreme Court decision discussed above. While not commercially important, this patent and the Supreme Court case "opened the floodgates for protection of biotechnology-related inventions and helped spark the growth of an industry." In 1978 University of California filed a patent application for the cDNA encoding human growth hormone, which issued in 1982 as U.S. Patent No. 4,363,877 and listed Howard M. Goodman, John Shine, and