X-Patent
On July 31, 1790 inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the "making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process." The earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature.
Erik Rotheim
The patent was sold to an American company for .
Commercial exploitation of the patent was not significant until it was introduced in the United States in the 1940s. 
Improvements to the underlying principle of the spray head by Americans Lyle D. Goodhue and William N. Sullivan allowed the technology to be further adapted, first with the Aerosol bomb for insect control, and later in various other applications. In 1949, Robert Abplanalp files the first aerosol valve patent which was issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1953.
Norway Post celebrated Rotheim's invention by issuing a commemorative stamp in 1998.