In Memoriam: Dan Brown: Inventor, Entrepreneur, Patent Advocate

Dan Brown

Inventors lost a champion this week. The sudden passing of Dan Brown, serial entrepreneur, 100+ patent holder, educator and policy activist, will leave a void.

Dan was a vocal proponent of a fair intellectual property system, and committed to building an equitable one for all inventors and creators.

From humble Chicago beginnings, Dan learned how to fix and improve machines at a young age. He once told me some of his best lessons were the earliest, when he had to solve breakdowns without experience or financial resources. “You figured it out,” he said.

Winner of 10 international design awards, Dan was a beloved professor in the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. From 2020 to 2025 he served as an elected member of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC), and worked with inventor groups and entrepreneurs throughout the United States to educate and improve the system.

As proud of his late-career Ph.D. as he was of his inventions, Dan was careful not to be defined by it. He was not your typical academic, nor did he want students to think he was. His groundbreaking “Differentiation by Design” approach helped students develop their ideas, understand intellectual property, and prepare them to file their own patent applications—a unique and invaluable skill set.

Dan and his team at Segal and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern were co-hosts for the IP Awareness Summit in 2024. He participated as speaker in a total of five IP summits, and always brought a strong, clear message, delivered in a resonant tenor that was readily heard and easily remembered.

After a long day of Summit planning, Dan, a music lover, urged me to accompany him on a Chicago blues crawl. I should have gone. Second chances don’t always come around.

Bionic Battle

Dan will forever be associated with the Bionic Wrench, inspired after watching his son, Dan Jr., struggle to fix a lawnmower with a pair of standard pliers.

He designed the tool to combine the easy, squeezing grip of pliers with the secure performance of a wrench, using a circular mechanism of sliding steel teeth (inspired by a camera shutter) that grips nuts and bolts evenly across all sides. The product led to the founding of LoggerHead Tools in 2005.

The tool won Popular Mechanics’ Product of the Year and numerous international design awards. Dan insisted on keeping the manufacturing domestic, partnering with Sears, which eventually decided, without telling him, to manufacture on its own in China. This led to a nasty multi-year lawsuit.

A jury eventually awarded LoggerHead $5.9 million, but it was never paid. The judge threw out the verdict and ruled in favor of Chicago-based Sears. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Eastern Division).

A Special Guest

Twice, Dan was a guest on my podcast, “Understanding IP Matters.” In 2021 by himself, and three years later with F. Scott Kieff, former International Trade Commission head.. In these episodes, Dan reveals himself and his approach to inventing, teaching and life.

Dan loved to fish in Canada, “as far north as the road will take me.” He was also dedicated to travel and talking about inventions and improving the lot of inventors. He was proud of his son, Dan Jr., also an inventor, and his daughter, Jennifer.

Dan saw both sides of the American Dream: significant invention success and the need to continuously fight knockoffs in the marketplace with limited resources. The latter almost destroyed his business. His suit against Sears cost far more than $1 million to “win”. The time and psychological toll were incalculable. Dan was quick to remind inventors that, for many under the current system, even when you win a patent dispute, you lose.

That did not deter Dan. American to the core, he came up the hard way and believed that meritocracy works. He frequently said that the best prescription for a great society is a good job. Rest in peace my friend. You will be remembered.