But Mr Sargent can, according to US patent 4,873,662, claim to have invented one of the world wide web's building blocks.
American law says the chap who writes the patent actually has to have a dollar.
So all you get is a dollar. Mr Sargent got his money - and still has the two postal orders he was sent to prove it. But Mr Sargent, who worked for the Post Office and then British Telecom for 42 years, is philosophical about his lack of reward, even in the face of the multi-billion dollar economy his creation may have helped to create and the windfall it could hand his former employers. At the time I was a bit fed up. I felt the inventions definitely had more value.