Women in Innovation for World IP Day: Bertha Benz

‘Behind every great man there’s a great woman’

Bertha Benz was born in Pforzheim, Germany in 1849. She was married to inventor Karl Benz, who invented the worlds first car in 1886. Before they were married, Bertha was Karl’s business partner and provided him financial aid to fund his then failing iron construction company. After they married, his company collapsed, and he continued to use the finances to support his new venture ‘Benz & Cie’. Karl Benz created the ‘Patent Motorwagen’, and received the patent for the vehicle in 1886. However, under German law at the time, Bertha had no rights to apply for or hold a patent as a married woman. But this didn’t affect her passion for the invention – and Bertha continued to support her husband, who was still working on perfecting the model 2 years after the patent was approved! Bertha, however, had other ideas and believed that the model was ready to go. In August 1888, without telling her husband, she and her two sons took off in the early morning and embarked on an adventure which would mark her in history as the first person to drive an automobile over a real distance. The destination was Pforzheim, the town of Bertha’s birth, to pay a visit to her mother, and around 12 hours later, at dusk, they arrived. Bertha contacted her husband via telegram to notify him of the successful expedition. Along the way there were a few problems that arose, which required Bertha’s brilliantly pioneering mind to spring into action! She cleaned a blocked fuel pipe using her hat pin, used her garter to insulate an exposed ignition wire - she even invented the world’s first break pads, visiting a cobbler to install leather pads when the wooden brakes began to falter! To this day, people from all over the world come to Germany to follow the route she traveled, which is now named the ‘Bertha Benz Memorial Route’.

Bertha played a pivotal role in the early stages of this now everyday form of transport, and without her faith, innovation, and bravery – who knows if Karl Benz would have ever felt his invention perfect enough to leave the workshop, and go on to be known as one of the greatest inventions of all time! As he stated himself in his memoirs: "Only one person remained with me in the small ship of life when it seemed destined to sink. That was my wife. Bravely and resolutely she set the new sails of hope."