“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas Edison

Fortunately I work for a company that values patents and has the means to pay for them. All but 4 of my patents have been obtained while working for DW Drums.
I haven’t taken the time to list the patents here, but you can follow the link that shows them if you are interested.
It is not 100% up to date, but pretty close.

http://www.patentbuddy.com/Inventor/Sikra-Richard-A/448433

or go to:

https://patents.google.com/?inventor=richard+sikra&oq=richard+sikra

Below is a picture of one of the pedals I designed.

Most of the patents have been made into at least one product that has been or is still being sold.
I think it was Edison who said that he would never work on an idea that wasn’t going to be wanted by many people.
Before that he had worked on a vote counting machine for congress. Once completed they decided that they didn’t want to use it. He said he learned a big lesson that day.

“Google Patent” is a great place to look at patents. Go to Stuff under the recommendations tab to get more info.