necessity is the mother of invention

Happy New Year!

For the first 2005 post – The Miami Herald has a story today about the mother of invention: necessity.

… began in 2000, when [David McDonald] forgot his toothpaste while on a trip.

"It stuck in my mind," he said, "that if I could just find a container for that and a toothbrush ..."

A machinist friend in Lakeville made a rough model of the Casemate. David McDonald pitched the idea in Atlanta to the board of directors of a manufacturing company.

"It was the first time I realized I had something," he said. "Everyone's jaw dropped. They were surprised no one had done this already."

With a prototype for the simple two-compartment case completed, he contacted St. Paul patent attorney Doug Tschida, who found the idea almost ridiculously simple. Said David McDonald: "He laughed and said, 'Is this patentable?'"

It was.

The patent - No. D457718 - is a design patent, which prevents a competitor from copying the appearance of the Casemate.

The best inventions are always the simple useful kind of things that you wonder “why hasn’t anyone done this before.”