History
The vacuum flask was invented by Scottish physicist and chemist Sir James Dewar in 1892 and is sometimes referred to as a Dewar flask or Dewar bottle after its inventor. The first vacuum flasks for commercial use were made in 1904 when a German company, Thermos GmbH, was founded. Dewar failed to register a patent for his invention and it was subsequently patented by Thermos, to whom Dewar lost a court case in claiming the rights to the invention.
"Thermos" remains a registered trademark in some countries, but was declared a genericized trademark in the U.S. in 1963 as it is colloquially synonymous with vacuum flasks in general.
Read more about this topic: Vacuum Flask
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
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Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)