According to Ogburn, inventions can include both material technological artifacts which change what sorts of things that can be done and the sets of customs, rules, and conventions that allow those material inventions to be of use to members of society. For example, there were various material technological inventions which made the automobile possible (the internal combustion engine, vulcanized rubber, the universal joint), but in order for the automobile to become integrated into society a number of non-material inventions were also necessary such as road networks, agreed upon rules of the road, licensing regimes, and so on.
