Orlando B. Potter

Orlando B. Potter appears in The Invention Invention as the lawyer who proposed turning the sewing-machine patent war into the Sewing Machine Combination. The source says Potter’s idea was for rival sewing-machine companies to stop suing each other and combine their patents into one pool.

Potter’s role makes the episode’s title concrete: the “invention invention” is not another machine part but an institution for making overlapping inventions commercially usable.

Connections

• Sewing Machine Combination - patent-pool agreement he proposed.
• Grover and Baker, Wheeler and Wilson, Isaac Merritt Singer, and Elias Howe Jr. - actors brought into the pool.
• Patent Pool, Complementary Patents, and Collaboration vs. Collusion - concepts tied to his proposal.