Unlucky Inventors Who Never Got to Cash in On Their Creations

January 17, 2023
•11 min read
Some inventors don't make any money at all from their inventions. Let's find out about unlucky inventors who didn't make any money from their inventions.
If you come up with a million-dollar idea, you might assume it to be yours forever, to cash in as you see fit. Unfortunately, that’s not quite how it works. As many have found throughout history, successfully crafting an idea is only a fraction of the battle.
The following inventors were pioneers of their time, developing inventions that are still in use today. Luck, however, wasn’t on their side. Either through their own unawareness and inaction or the ill will of outside parties, these unlucky inventors missed out on cashing-in big time.10. Shane Chen
Shane Chen’s story is one of immorality and, as he describes it, a broken patent system. The Beijing native developed the two-wheeled self-balancing scooter known as the “hoverboard,” for which his patent was approved in 2014.
Originally, the $1,000 selling price was a deterrent for general consumers, but Chen wasn’t willing to use cheaper materials at the risk of making the hoverboard unsafe. That, however, didn’t stop others from taking the steps Chen avoided. The original inventor of the hoverboard may have only produced several thousand, but there’s now a market of more than a million thanks to over 11,000 independent factories in China.Despite patents filed by Chen, Chinese companies have started churning out cheap knockoffs. Just as Chen suspected, the cheaper models, which can retail as low as $100 to $150, were a hazard. Weaker batteries and improper connections caused fires in early models, resulting in disasters like the video below:9. John Walker
Chances are your household has at least a few of them floating around, but do you know the history of the friction match? Let’s take a trip back to 1826 to the English town of Stockton-on-Tees, where we’ll find pharmacist and inventor John Walker.
While experimenting with a flammable mixture, a match doused in the concoction sparked against Walker’s hearth and caught fire. Immediately, Walker started producing “Friction Lights,” or sticks coated with sulfur and topped with sulfide of antimony, gum, and chlorate of potash.Clearly, he was onto something, as British scientist Michael Faraday, known for his work on electromagnetism and electrochemistry, advised Walker to patent the design. Walker, however, refused, under the belief that it should be free for anyone to produce. That didn’t stop Samuel Jones, the inventor of a copycat match known as “Lucifers”, and Charles Sauria, inventor of the phosphorus-based match, from profiting from Walker’s concept.
8. Alexey Pajitnov
Alexey Pajitnov is known for being the mind behind the phenomenally-popular videogame, Tetris. But recognition doesn’t change the fact that he missed out on a huge sum of money at the peak of Tetris mania.


7. Daisuke Inoue
In 1979, Daisuke Inoue and the band he played drums for started attracting attention with music that was easy to sing along with. Eventually, Inoue was requested to play drums for the president of a small steel company during a business trip.
Though the young drummer couldn’t attend, he gave the businessman a tape of accompaniment music for him and his colleagues to enjoy singing along to. From there, Inoue saw the potential for a machine that could play instrumental versions of popular songs for people of all abilities to sing along to. In 1971, he and several friends connected eight-track tape players to amplifiers and leased several of the machines to bars.6. Walter Hunt
Sometimes having a conscience can cost you millions. Just ask Walter Hunt, the original inventor of the sewing machine. In 1833, Hunt designed the first sewing machine that didn’t mimic a hand stitch and provided a more durable and faster method of sewing. Fearing that it would put seamstresses out of work, Hunt didn’t patent his idea.
That changed when Elias Howe Jr. submitted his own patent for improvements made to Hunt’s machine. The 1846 patent came under question when attorneys dug up evidence of Hunt’s earlier model. In 1853, the original inventor submitted an application to patent the 1833 design. Though the Patent Office recognized Hunt’s design as the original, Howe’s patent remained in effect for being filed first.
5. Elisha Gray
Alexander Graham Bell is commonly attributed as the inventor of the telephone; but what about Ohio inventor Elisha Gray? A terrible stroke of luck is the reason that Gray isn’t the household name that Graham Bell turned out to be.
Gray, a co-founder of Western Electric Company, had been secretly working on an invention that could transmit voices through a liquid medium. On February 11, 1876, he requested his patent lawyer, William Baldwin, to file a provisional patent application, or caveat. Three days later, Baldwin submitted the caveat to the U.S. Patent Office. Unfortunately, another patent application for the same concept was filed mere hours before Gray’s caveat.The owner of that caveat? You guessed it - Alexander Graham Bell. Gray claimed that his lawyers reached the office before Bell’s, but Bell ultimately retained the patent.
4. Douglas Engelbart
Engineer Douglas Engelbart is far from unlucky when it comes to his many successes. He’s one of the pioneers of the hyperlink and developed the early stages of graphical user interfaces, but there’s one invention that he was never able to cash in on.

3. Heinrich Goebel
Thomas Edison receives plenty of criticism for stealing other inventors’ ideas. In many cases, like that of the lightbulb, that criticism is well-founded. Edison may have profited off the light bulb, but the development of the modern bulb can be traced back to Heinrich Goebel in 1854.

2. Charles Francis Jenkins
Thomas Edison would likely want you to believe the concept of the projector was his idea, but, like the light bulb, that simply isn’t the case. The history of the movie projector can be traced to Charles Francis Jenkins who, with the financial backing of Thomas Armat, developed the Phantoscope in the 1890s.
While Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, in development around the same time, produced blurry moving images inside a container, Jenkins’ early-model film projector was the first of its kind to allow smooth, clear projection of moving images.
1. Catherine Hettinger
Catherine Hettinger, an American engineer responsible for creating what is perceived to be the predecessor of the fidget spinner, narrowly missed out on one of the most insanely-popular trends in toy history.
The original design, which Hettinger developed in 1990, was a simple disk that spins on one finger. Hettinger originally designed it for her daughter but saw the potential when locals at arts and crafts fairs ate it up.She was awarded her patent in 1997 but had a hard time selling the idea. Hasbro even turned her down, not yet seeing the potential. For 18 years, Hettinger’s spinner remained on the sideline. When her patent expired in 2005, she was unable to pay the $400 renewal fee.