The Portuguese inventions are the inventions created by the people born in Portugal (continent or overseas), or whose nationality is Portuguese. These inventions were created mainly during the age of Portuguese discoveries, and during modernity.
Relying on trade secret explains, in part, the difficulty often experienced by researchers[3] in documenting Portuguese inventions, as many are not described in patent documents, or other technical documents. On the other hand, there are cases, like some types of swords, where the inventions themselves or the underlying documents were lost, having been destroyed, for example, during the French invasions. There are as well documentation and objects of Portuguese origin in private collections or museums outside of Portugal.[4]
More recently, the technical domain varies from computers to medicine. Such examples might be Via Verde, an automatic system for collecting tolls for vehicles; the Multibanco, an automatic teller machine network with a multitude of functions ranging from bank transfers to the payment of tickets for shows;[5] or in the field of medicine, a treatment of epilepsy, the drug Zebinix by Bial Laboratories.[6]
Gallery of Portuguese inventions
Carrack (Nau) – the Oceanic Carrack (a new and different model, and largest carrack)
Square-rigged caravel – Round caravel. The most enduring and replicated model of the ships with this name, and predecessor of other ships of the range.
^"A Caravela" [The Caravel]. www.CienciaViva.pt (in Portuguese). Ciência Viva [Living Science]. 2002. Archived from the original on 24 April 2003. Retrieved 3 December 2011.
^"Multibanco português é dos mais avançados do mundo". www.SIBS.pt (in Portuguese). Sociedade Interbancaria de Serviços S.A. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2006. citing Portuguese newspaper Semanário Económico in its 27 October 2006 edition: "A qualidade do sistema português de máquinas Automated Teller Machine (ATM) é reconhecida em qualquer ponto do globo, não só pela modernidade dos equipamentos como pela enorme quantidade de funcionalidades disponíveis." [The quality of the Portuguese system is recognised anywhere in the globe, not only for the modernity of its equipments, but also for the enormous amount of functionalities available.]