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.
Lester Wire
Eight years after Wire's invention, in Detroit in 1920, a detective named William Potts introduced the amber light and a series of electrical controls that would ultimately resulted in the automatic traffic light. Potts did not apply for a patent, but the first inventor to do so was Garret Morgan, who patented his invention of the traffic light with a STOP, GO and a third position for pedestrians. Morgan eventually sold his patent to General Electric where it was mass-produced.