- List of prolific inventors
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Thomas Edison was widely known as the world's most prolific inventor.[1][2] He holds a total of 1,093 U.S. patents (1,084 utility patents and 9 design patents).[3] By 2005, he was passed by Japanese inventor Shunpei Yamazaki.[4] Yamazaki was subsequently passed by Australian inventor Kia Silverbrook on February 26, 2008.[5] Silverbrook currently holds 4,248 U.S. utility patents.[6]
The top 40 most prolific inventors by worldwide utility patent families are shown in the following table. In many cases, this number is also the number of granted U.S. utility patents. A patent family is a set of patents filed in various countries to protect a single invention.
Inventor Patent Families Country Total, INPADOC Years Main fields of invention Ref Kia Silverbrook 4,248 
Australia9,192 1958 - Printing, Digital paper, Internet, Electronics, CGI, Chemical, MEMS, Mechanical, VLSI [7][5][4][8][6][9] Shunpei Yamazaki 2,728 
Japan10,654 1942 - Thin film transistors, Liquid crystal displays, Solar cells, Flash memory, OLED [10][11][7][4][8] Paul Lapstun 1,117 Australia3,053 19?? - Printing, Digital paper, Internet, Electronics, CGI, VLSI [12][13][7] Thomas Edison 1,084 
United States2,332 1847–1931 Electric power, Lighting, Batteries, Phonograph, Cement, Telegraphy, Mining [3][14][1][5][7] George Albert Lyon 993 
CanadaNA 1882–1961 Automotive, Stainless steel products [15][7] Leonard Forbes 964 Canada1,307 1940 - Semiconductor Memories, CCDs, Thin film processes and materials, VLSI [16][17][7][8] Donald Weder 959 United States1,908 1947 - Florist supplies [18][19][7][4][8] John F. O'Connor 949 United StatesNA 1864–19?? Railway draft gearing [20][7] Melvin De Groote 925 United StatesNA 1896–1963 Chemical de-emulsifiers [1][7] Gurtej Sandhu 906 
India1,443 1960 - Thin film processes and materials, VLSI, Semiconductor device fabrication [21][22][4][8] Francis H. Richards 894 United StatesNA 1850–19?? Mechanical, automation [1][7] Carleton Ellis 753 United StatesNA 1876-1941 Margarine, Polyester, Anti-knock gasoline, Paint stripper [23][20] Warren Farnworth 742 United States924 1954 - Semiconductor packaging [24][25][4][8] George Spector 722 United States747 19?? - Gadgets, Toys [8][26][4][8] Jun Koyama 716 Japan2,525 19?? - Thin film transistors, Liquid crystal displays, OLED [27][28] Elihu Thomson 696 
UKNA 1853–1937 Electric power, Arc lamp, Electric motors, Lightning arrester, Arc welder [1][20] Salman Akram 691 United States830 1967 - Semiconductor packaging [29][30][4][8] William I. Wood 641 United States3,573 19?? - Proteins, Antibodies [31][32] Josef Theurer 625 
Austria4,932 19?? - Railroad maintenance machines [33][34] Audrey Goddard 610 United States3,461 19?? - Proteins, Antibodies [35][36] Simon Walmsley 608 Australia1,256 19?? - Printing, Electronics, VLSI, Cryptography [37][38] Jerome Lemelson 606 United StatesNA 1923-1997 Toys, Industrial robots, Cordless telephones, Fax machines, Videocassette recorders [39][1] Austin L. Gurney 606 United States3,387 19?? - Proteins, Antibodies [40][41] Béla Barényi 595 
Hungary1,238 1907-1997 Passive safety in automobiles [42][43] Jay Walker 592 United States1,903 1955 - Gaming machines [44][45] Paul J. Godowski 576 United States2,645 19?? - Proteins, Antibodies [46][47] Artur Fischer 570 
Germany3,090 1919 - Fasteners, Construction toys [48][49] Tetsujiro Kondo 561 Japan4,068 19?? - Signal processing, Image processing [50][51] Edwin H. Land 535 United States1,214 1909-1991 Instant photography, Polarizing film [52][53] Henry Dreyfus 524 United States2,085 1882-1944 Polymers, Synthetic fibers, Dyes [54][55] Clyde C. Farmer 513 United States816 18??-19?? Railway air brakes [56][57][20] Kie Y Ahn 512 United States682 19?? - Thin film processes and materials, VLSI, Semiconductor device fabrication [58][59] Mark I. Gardner 511 United States583 1955 - Consumer electronics, Energy, Computers, Semiconductors, Physics [60][61][4][8] Heinz Focke 510 Germany2,888 19?? - Cigarette packaging [62][63][4] Louis H. Morin 503 United States721 18??-19?? Fasteners, Locks, Bobbins [56][64] Michael J. Sullivan 496 United States1,161 19?? - Golf balls [65][66] Tobin King 458 Australia1,236 19?? - Printing, Digital paper, Mechanical [67][68] Eberhard Ammermann 452 Germany5,077 19?? - Fungicides [69][70] Hongyong Zhang 424 Japan758 19?? - Thin film transistors, Liquid crystal displays [71][72] Wilhelm Brandes 411 Germany2,922 19?? - Fungicides [73][74] †This table was last updated on November 16, 2011.
- Inventor: The name of the inventor.
- Patent Families: This is the number of families of utility patents that have been issued. In many cases above, it is also the number of issued U.S. utility patents. There is a direct correspondence between the number of patent families and the number of unique patented inventions. The total number of worldwide patents does not correspond closely to the number of inventions, as each separate invention must be filed as a separate patent in each country for which patent protection is sought. Only utility patents are listed, as a utility patent is a patent for an invention. Not all patents are for inventions. Other patent types are: design patents for the ornamental design of an object; plant patents for plant varieties; and reissue patents, where a correction is made to an already granted patent. This list does not include patent applications (patents pending) as there is no guarantee that a patent application actually describes a novel invention until the patent is granted.
- Total, INPADOC: Worldwide number of patents of all types (utility, design, plant, etc.) This includes patent applications, and duplication of the same patent in multiple countries, so is usually an overestimate of the total number of inventions. This data is primarily from INPADOC, an international patent collection produced and maintained by the European Patent Office (EPO). For some inventors active before computer records were available, the total number of patents is not available (NA).
- Country: This is the country of birth of the inventor, where known. If the country of birth is unknown, this is the country of patent filing.
- Years: These are the birth and death years of the inventor, where known.
- Main fields of invention: These are the main areas that the inventor is or was active in.
Contents
Significance of inventions
This table is a ranking of the most prolific inventors, not necessarily the most significant inventors. The significance of inventions is often not apparent until many decades after the invention has been made. For recent inventors, it is not yet possible to determine their place in history.
The common symbol for inventiveness - the light bulb - is a perfect example. The first incandescent light bulb was invented by British chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1802. Many subsequent inventors improved Davy's invention prior to the successful commercialization of electric lighting by Thomas Edison in 1880, 78 years later. Electric lighting continued to be developed. Edison's carbon filament light bulb was made obsolete by the tungsten filament light bulb, invented in 1904. It is this that forms the popular conception of a light bulb, though there are other major forms of lighting. The principle of fluorescent lights was known since 1845, and various inventors, including Edison and Nikola Tesla worked on them without commercial success. Various improvements were made by many other inventors, until General Electric introduced "fluorescent lumiline lamps" commercially in 1938, first available to the public at the 1939 World's Fair. LED lamps also have a long history, with the first light-emitting diode (LED) invented in 1927 by Oleg Losev. LEDs were initially of low brightness, and have been used as indicator lamps and seven-segment displays since 1968. It wasn't until the development of high efficiency blue LEDs by Shuji Nakamura in the 1980s that white LEDs for lighting applications became practical. Although higher cost than incandescent light bulbs, LEDs have higher efficiency and longer life and may finally displace light bulbs in general lighting applications. In each case, more than 50 years passed between the initial invention and commercial success in general lighting applications.
Various published lists
Rankings of prolific inventors have been published at various times. However, until the patent records were digitized, these lists were very tedious to prepare, as many thousands of patent records had to be checked manually. Even after digitization, it is still not a simple process. While the USPTO keeps statistics for annual rankings of inventions assigned to companies, it no longer publishes rankings of individual inventors. The last such list was published by the USPTO in 1998.[75] Also, patents predating 1976 have not yet been digitized in the USPTO records. This means that patents before 1976 will not be included in a USPTO search by inventor name, and the number of patents granted before 1976 must be added to current searches.
Popular Science (1936)
In January 1936, Popular Science Magazine published a list of the "most prolific living inventors to be found in America today":[20]
Rank Inventor U.S. Patents 1 John F. O'Connor 949 2 Elihu Thomson 696 3 Carleton Ellis 648 4 Henry A. Wise Wood 434 5 John Hays Hammond Jr. 360 6 Clyde C. Farmer 344 7 Ethan I. Dodds 321 8 Edward Weston 309 Thomas Edison was not included in the list, as he died in 1931, five years earlier.
Time Magazine (2000)
On December 4, 2000, Time Magazine published a list of the "top five inventors".[1]
Rank Inventor U.S. Patents 1 Thomas Edison 1,093 2 Melvin De Groote 925 3 Francis H. Richards 894 4 Elihu Thomson 696 5 Jerome Lemelson 554 This list only included U.S. inventors, so omitted Canadian inventor George Albert Lyon, with 993 U.S. patents at the time of publication, Japanese inventor Shunpei Yamazaki, with 745 U.S. patents, and Béla Barényi, with 595 German patents. Also omitted were John F. O'Connor with 949 U.S. patents, and Carleton Ellis, with 753 U.S. patents at the time of publication.
USA Today (2005)
On December 13, 2005 USA Today published a list of "the top 10 living U.S. patent holders":[4]
Rank Inventor U.S. Patents 1 Shunpei Yamazaki 1,432 2 Donald Weder 1,322 3 Kia Silverbrook 810 4 George Spector 723 5 Gurtej Sandhu 576 6 Warren Farnworth 547 7 Salman Akram 527 8 Mark Gardner 512 9 Heinz Focke 508 10 Joseph Straeter 477 This research was performed by ipIQ of Chicago (now "The Patent Board"[76]) and 1790 Analytics[77] of New Jersey. This list only considered living inventors, and thus did not include such prolific inventors as Thomas Edison, Melvin De Groote, and Elihu Thomson. This list included design patents, which are not patents for inventions.
Condé Nast Portfolio (2007)
On October 15, 2007 Condé Nast Portfolio Magazine published a list[8] of "the world's most prolific inventors alive":
Rank Inventor U.S. Patents 1 Shunpei Yamazaki 1,811 2 Kia Silverbrook 1,646 3 Donald Weder 1,350 4 George Spector 722 5 Gurtej Sandhu 674 6 Leonard Forbes 671 7 Warren Farnworth 635 8 Salman Akram 612 9 Mark Gardner 515 10 Joseph Straeter 485 This research was performed by The Patent Board,[76] a Chicago patent research and advisory firm. As with the USA Today list, the Portfolio list only considered living inventors, and thus did not include such prolific inventors as Thomas Edison. This list also included design patents, which are not patents for inventions.
Business Insider (2011)
On 6 May 2011 Business Insider published an article titled: "The Ten Greatest Inventors In The Modern Era"[7] containing the following list:
Rank Inventor U.S. Patents 1 Kia Silverbrook 3,847 2 Shunpei Yamazaki 2,061 3 Thomas Edison 1,084 4 George Albert Lyon 993 5 Paul Lapstun 969 6 Donald Weder 951 7 John F. O'Connor 949 8 Leonard Forbes 948 9 Melvin De Groote 925 10 Francis H. Richards 894 This list included living and dead inventors, and only included granted utility patents (patents for inventions).
Differences between lists
Differences in patent numbers between the various lists are due to several reasons:
- The lists were created on different dates. As many of the inventors in the lists are still active, the number of patents they hold are increasing.
- While the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the primary source for U.S. patent information, only patents issued since 1976 can be electronically searched by the inventor's name at the USPTO website.[78] For some of the listed inventors, such as Thomas Edison, all of their patents predate 1976, so other sources must be used.
- Often entities list the worldwide total number of patents that they hold. This is not the same as the number of inventions, as a patent in one country may be for the same invention as a patent in another country. The set of patents covering a single invention in different countries is a Patent family.
- The Time, USA Today and Portfolio lists show the total number of U.S. patents, including patents for designs (Design patents) as well as patents for inventions (Utility patents).
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Man-Made Marvels Time Magazine, Dec 4, 2000
- ^ Thomas Alva Edison Biography at Rutgers University
- ^ a b List of Edison patents
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k You really can find identities of top patent holders USA Today, Dec 13, 2005
- ^ a b c The True Inventor Basson-Booyens website
- ^ a b USPTO Utility Patent Search for Kia Silverbrook
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k The Ten Greatest Inventors In The Modern Era Business Insider, 6 May 2011
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Masters of invention Portfolio, October 15, 2007
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Kia Silverbrook
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Shunpei/Shumpei Yamazaki
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Shunpei/Shumpei Yamazaki
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Paul Lapstun
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Paul Lapstun
- ^ Edison's Foreign Patents
- ^ Archived Boliven Utility Patent Search for George Albert Lyon(s)
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Leonard Forbes
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Leonard Forbes
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Donald Weder
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Donald Weder
- ^ a b c d e Meet the Champion Inventors Popular Science, vol 128 No 1, January 1936
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Gurtej Sandhu
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Gurtej Sandhu
- ^ B. Zorina Khan, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development, 1790-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2005) pp209-210
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Warren Farnworth
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Warren Farnworth
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for George Spector
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Jun Koyama
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Jun Koyama
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Salman Akram
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Salman Akram
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for William I. Wood
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for William I. Wood
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Josef Theurer
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Josef Theurer
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Audrey Goddard
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Audrey Goddard
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Simon Walmsley
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Simon Walmsley
- ^ The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention & Innovation web site, Jerome Lemelson's Patents.
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Austin L. Gurney
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Austin L. Gurney
- ^ German Utility Patent Search for Béla Barényi
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Béla Barényi
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Jay Walker
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Jay Walker
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Paul J. Godowski
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Paul J. Godowski
- ^ Reference to German patents of Artur Fischer
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Artur Fischer
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Tetsujiro Kondo
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Tetsujiro Kondo
- ^ Victor K. McElheny, Insisting on the impossible: The Life of Edwin Land (Perseus Books, 1998)
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Edwin H. Land
- ^ Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Henry Dreyfus
- ^ a b Archived Boliven.com website
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Clyde C. Farmer
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Kie Y Ahn
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Kie Y Ahn
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Mark I. Gardner
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Mark I. Gardner
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Heinz Focke
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Heinz Focke
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Louis H. Morin
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Michael Sullivan
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Michael J. Sullivan
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Tobin King
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Tobin King
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Eberhard Ammermann
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Eberhard Ammermann
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Hongyong Zhang
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Hongyong Zhang
- ^ USPTO Utility Patent Search for Wilhelm Brandes
- ^ Worldwide Patent Search for Wilhelm Brandes
- ^ USPTO publication: Prolific Inventors Receiving Utility Patents 1988-1997
- ^ a b The Patent Board website
- ^ 1790 Analytics website
- ^ USPTO Patent Search website
Categories:- Inventors
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- Lists of inventors
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