Inventors are what push us forward as a species - some of them slave for years with dogged determination, and some of them chance upon it by sheer accident - and these inventions fundamentally change the way we live our lives. In this list we tip our hats to the inventors who, for whatever reasons, never made a killing from their inventions. We use all of them to this day and our lives are all the more convenient for it.

Alexey Pajitnov - Tetris

This man was responsible for Tetris which for a long time belonged to the Soviet government.

Tetris is a pop-culture icon of the 90s and gaming on the whole. It was developed in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Russian programmer who was working at the USSR's Academy of Science. But it was only after ten years when he started The Tetris Company, that he was entitled to royalties on his creation, the right to which till that point was owned by the Soviet government.

Trevor Bayliss - Wind-Up Radio

The Wind-Up Radio still has high sales, but the inventor lost ownership of his product when the design was upgraded.

The man behind the wind-up radio and several other inventions Trevor Bayliss has said, "Most of us don't do it for the money but for the buzz. I know that at least I've left my mark with the radio, the wind-up torch and other things I've invented." Sir Trevor's device was invented in response to the need to communicate about AIDS to people in Africa. Although recently it was said that he could no longer afford to live in his home in Twickenham, London, because despite the high sales, the company he went into business with were able to tweak his design and he lost control over the product and profits.