Posted on 05/27/2015 9:03:39 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Thomas Edison is usually thought of as the greatest inventor ever, bringing the automatic telegraph, the phonograph, and alkaline battery into the world.
His Menlo Park, New Jersey, lab was so productive that he promised "a minor invention every ten days and a big thing every six months or so."
All together, he had 2,332 patents to his name.
But according to Stephen Fry at the Telegraph, Apple chief design officer Jony Ive has been way more prolific than Edison.
You — and your friends and family — live their lives surrounded by things his inventive hands have touched. The iPhone, the iPad, the new MacBook.
"Ive's inventiveness can perhaps most starkly be expressed by revealing that he has nearly 5,000 patents to his name," Fry writes.
That's double the number of patents as Edison, who was 84 years old when he passed away.
Ive is only 48. Barring a tragedy or change of career course, he has decades left of inventing left in him.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Yes, he did have a very busy legal department filing patents. . . and keeping on top of infringements.
I don’t want to take away from his accomplishments, but I want to keep it in context. We would need to compare comparable patents to know who was actually more accomplished.
Moving a wire from one side of the device to the other, while legally valid for patent purposes, it does not compare with the invention of the light bulb, for example.
Even Edison knew AC was superior when there was a job to be done. Such as taking out an elephant.
As seen here, via a famous Edison invention for making videos in 1903.
An obscene perspective I hope the contemporary inventor doesn’t share.
The Tesla vs Edison debate is thoroughly idiotic.
No, actually we don't.
Heck, the president even has a Nobel.
And where there was once only one in any town, now there's a Mercedes or a Beemer in ever other driveway.
Furthermore, remember when people used to out for a burger or maybe a steak and some Italian food if it was a big deal? Now people order Chilean Sea Bass for lunch; insist upon being able to choose from 5 or 6 different kinds of "greens" for their salads, and basically won't order anything with a name that's less than 3 syllables long.
Many? According to this Wikipedia article listing all of Edison's 1093 patents (2332 worldwide), he was awarded just 9 design patents. Nine out of 1093 is about 0.8%. I would call that "a few" rather than "many".
Why don't you tell us how many of Ive's patents are utility, and how many are design?
Of course, in both cases, much of the work behind those patents is that of others, with the "top dog" taking all the credit for them.
A quick search of the USPTO database shows many if not most of Ive’s patents are “Design Patents,” which protect the ornamental appearance of an object. I don’t know how Edison’s portfolio stacks up in that regard, but I would speculate that Edison’s portfolio is mostly Utility Patent, what most people associate with “invention.”
If you have a smart phone (other than blackberry), you probably have.
I remember reading this years ago. Quotes from the article:
...the Sooner phone was ugly. It looked like a Black-Berry, with a traditional keyboard and a small screen that wasn’t touch-enabled.
“Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”
“We knew that Apple was going to announce a phone. Everyone knew that. We just didn’t think it would be that good,” said Ethan Beard, one of Android’s early business development executives.
Competition is wonderful.
edison filed most of his patents with the help of his patent attorney ... singular.
additionally, filing patents internationally today is trivial. there are firms today that specialize in filing international patents with every country under the sun. patent count means little when comparing to 100 years ago
if you wish to compare, then compare home country only patent counts. also, disregard design patents, as they protect branding more then function and isn’t truly inventive but more aesthetic
I have a smart phone, but I don't live my life surrounded by it.
Design patents aren’t based on inventions in the sense most people use that term - they protect industrial design.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple files designs in large numbers of variations for each (potential) product.
Meh.
In what way? You are aware that Tesla is now credited with inventing radio, are you not? Marconi was a Johnny come lately. . . using Tesla's published work without attribution.
There is a mythos that has grown up around the "Wizard of Menlo Park," which Edison was only too happy to foster. In reality, Edison only had one truly unique flash of inspiration that came out of the blue with no others preceding his work, and that was the phonograph. The electric light was neither the first or the first lightbulb, just the first one that had a useful lifespan. In fact there were earlier, similar patents both here and in Europe for electric light bulbs, and one patented about three months prior to Edison's in Great Britain for one using the same filament material. That international patent dispute was eventually settled by cross licensing and eventual merger of Edison's light company and the English light company. The movie camera and projector were also neither first nor unique, but we're the most useful, practical, and economical to use, with a French invention losing out to Edison's. Most of his work were ideas whose time was ripe. . . And many were derivative of work being done at my Great, great, grandfather's, Alexander Graham Bell's, company. . . and I'm convinced Bell stole the key component design for HIS telephone from the guy who SHOULD have been credited with the invention of the telephone.
Many of Edison's other inventions were not truly Edison's inventions but rather inventions by his employees, which he invariably put his name on. . . under the concept that it was his company and therefore his. Some he likely gave the initial idea to an engineer to work out the details, but not anywhere close to all. He and Tesla got into a battle over just such a disagreement about attribution of Tesla's work when Tesla worked for him for a short period. . . and the suits went on for quite some time.
Steve Jobs was not above putting his name on patents coming out of Apple, but not anywhere all or even a majority of them, just those in which he was heavily involved in the design and decision making of their functionality, and always along with the other co-inventors, and seldom as the lead inventor. Apple otherwise attributes its inventions to the employees who actually do the major work, with the ownership of the patent assigned to Apple Inc.
Everything coming out of Edison's workshop was attributed to him. . . a hard thing to swallow considering the number and quality of people whom he had working for him, especially considering the number of independent inventions they individually filed before and after working for Edison.
dayglored,
Here’s the real rub on this patent count compared to Edison’s: Edison was the owner of his patents. I bet almost none of these patents convey with Jony.
In other words, they are Apple patents, produced by a large department in which Jony played a role. It’s disingenuous to call these patent’s Jony’s. They neither below to him, nor did he do 100% of the work on them.
I *am* making some assumptions here, but I think they are fair assumptions, since I’ve been on Jony’s side before, where my team does work, we submit a patent application, and - as manager - my name, or some other manager’s name, goes on the application.
Edison took the fruits of labor from others, too, but *he owned those patents.*
If I was Jony, I would be embarrassed at the comparison and seek to set the record straight quickly about my “talented team,” how “I don’t deserve the credit,” and so forth and so on.
Hopefully he does.
That's very strange. . . because I just looked at five of his patents and it sure looks as if all five were signed by different attorneys. That looks to me as if Edison had more than one patent attorney working for him.
if you wish to compare, then compare home country only patent counts. also, disregard design patents, as they protect branding more then function and isn’t truly inventive but more aesthetic
Post your comparison complaints to the author of the article if you think they have any validity.
That means absolutely nothing. Read the patents and you will see that Edison "assigned" the patents to himself from his company, covering his legal bases. There was frequently some bitterness among his employees because Edison took credit for their ideas. Edison would hire people for their expertise in certain areas to work in his laboratory. . . and then take credit for the work they did while employed with him. Many university professors do the same thing today with their graduate students' work.
The Edison - Tesla dispute over DC/AC got started that way when Tesla came to Edison and told him that he thought he knew a way to build AC systems and Edison told him he'd pay Tesla $50,000 if he did and give him invention credit, thinking it wouldn't work. Tesla did it, and Edison welshed on his agreement because he was heavily invested in DC. Tesla sued for specific performance of the oral agreement. . . and then took his invention elsewhere.
Well he screwed up the 6.. put the damn lock / power switch back on top right versus opposite the mute an volume switches.
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