Anecdote Origin: Everything That Can Be Invented Has Been Invented

Henry L. Ellsworth? Charles H. Duell? Roswell Park? Royal S. Copeland? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: According to a popular legend the Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office wanted to shut down the organization in the nineteenth century. He supposedly proclaimed: Everything that can be invented has been invented. The two primary candidates for the …