Inventor Brett Boles-Murphy Named 2026 Wonder Women Awards Finalist Following Utility Patent
UNITED STATES — Inventor, author and entrepreneur Brett Lindsay Boles-Murphy is pleased to announce she has been named a finalist in the Independent Designer/Inventor category at the 2026 Wonder Women Awards. The recognition follows another milestone in her career: the issuance of her first utility patent for The Bawdy Filter®, a functional compression bodysuit developed through years of testing and refinement.
Boles-Murphy will attend the Wonder Women Awards on September 17, 2026, at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. Presented by Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment, the annual program recognizes women whose work is contributing to the toy, licensing, consumer products and entertainment industries. Winners will be announced during the gala.
Her path to the finalist list began long before she used “inventor” as a professional title. As a child, Boles-Murphy wrote stories, recorded original songs on a cassette player and imagined products intended to make everyday tasks easier. She and her younger brother, Alan, spent hours outdoors developing ideas and experimenting with whatever materials they could find. Empty syrup bottles collected from restaurant tables became containers for their own childhood formulations.
Although those early projects reflected an instinct for invention, Boles-Murphy initially pursued more conventional roles in finance, accounting and project management. She later received legal training and developed experience guiding teams, managing complex assignments and helping people work through practical obstacles. Over time, she recognized that the problem-solving habits she had relied on throughout her life could form the basis of a career.
Boles-Murphy began working as an inventor and author in 2015. One of her first product-development projects was a children’s leotard inspired by watching her daughter struggle to remove the garment when using the restroom. The design did not receive a patent, but the development process gave her a working education in prototypes, product revisions and intellectual property.
Lessons from that early project informed her next undertaking: The Bawdy Filter®, a compression garment for adults. Between 2019 and 2020, Boles-Murphy wore prototypes on approximately 300 days, using the extended trial period to evaluate fit, construction, comfort, durability and everyday wearability. She revised the design as she learned how each version performed outside a controlled development setting.
Following approximately five years of examination and continued product work, Boles-Murphy received a utility patent for the functional bodysuit in October 2025. For her, the patent represented more than legal protection for a design. It marked the outcome of a lengthy process that required experimentation, repeated adjustments and a willingness to continue when the finished product remained difficult for others to picture.
“Invention often means working through a period when the idea is clear to its creator but not yet visible to anyone else,” says Boles-Murphy. “Receiving the patent and being selected as a Wonder Women Awards finalist recognize the years of testing, reworking and persistence behind the finished design. I hope those milestones also encourage other creators to take their ideas seriously, even when the path forward is not immediately understood.”
Her connection to product development also reflects a family history of skilled work and entrepreneurship. Her paternal family operated the Boles Shoe Shop in Oxford, Mississippi, a longstanding Black-owned business. That history helped Boles-Murphy view craftsmanship and product creation as meaningful professional pursuits rather than interests that needed to remain on the margins of a conventional career.
Alongside her independent projects, Boles-Murphy has worked with creatives, entrepreneurs and business owners on the development of apparel, books, food products, intellectual property and consumer experiences. Her work emphasizes practical collaboration: identifying a problem, testing possible answers and improving an idea until it can take a tangible form.
The Wonder Women Awards finalist recognition places the latest chapter of that work within a broader industry event. It also brings her story back to its earliest theme—the value of treating imagination as a serious starting point and accepting that useful ideas often require years of patient, largely unseen work before others can experience them.
About Brett Lindsay Boles-Murphy
Brett Lindsay Boles-Murphy is an inventor, author, law-trained program manager and entrepreneur associated with SOW Business LLC. Her work centers on creative problem-solving, product development, intellectual property and collaboration with entrepreneurs and organizations. She is the inventor of The Bawdy Filter®, a functional compression bodysuit for which she received a utility patent in October 2025, and a 2026 Wonder Women Awards finalist in the Independent Designer/Inventor category.