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Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson (July 18, 1923 – October 1, 1997) was a prolific American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions and works in the fields in which he patented have made possible, either wholly or in part, innovations like automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players.〔 Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history. Lemelson was an advocate for the rights of independent inventors; he served on a federal advisory committee on patent issues from 1976 to 1979.〔 A series of patent litigations and subsequent licensing negotiations made him a controversial figure, seen as a champion by the community of independent inventors,〔http://www.inc.com/ss/14-inventors-we-love#1〕〔(Powers of invention - US News and World Report )〕 while criticized by patent attorneys and directors of some of the companies with whom he was involved in litigation.〔http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-08-21-lemelson-fraud_x.htm Some claim inventor Lemelson a fraud, Adam Goldman, The Associated Press, 2005〕 In 1993, Lemelson and his family established the Lemelson Foundation, a philanthropy with the mission to support invention and innovation to improve lives in the US and developing countries. == Biography == Lemelson was born on Staten Island, New York, on July 18, 1923, the oldest of three brothers. His father was a physician of Austrian-Jewish descent.〔(Jerome Lemelson, Independent Inventor )〕 His first invention, as a child, was for a lighted tongue depressor that his father, a local physician, could use.〔(Biographical Profile of Jerome Lemelson )〕 He also ran a business in his basement as a teenager, making and selling gas-powered model airplanes.〔 He attended New York University after serving during World War II in the United States Army Air Corps engineering department. He also developed a series of patents on the manufacturing of integrated circuits, which he licensed to Texas Instruments in 1961.〔 While working during this period on complex industrial products, ranging across the fields of robotics, lasers, computers, and electronics, Lemelson utilized some of the concepts in these more "high tech" areas and applied them to a variety of toy concepts, receiving patents for velcro target games, wheeled toys, board games, and improvements on the classic propeller beanie, among others.〔 An exhibit of his toy inventions can be seen at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.〔http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/online_articles_detail.aspx?id=529〕 This cross-pollination across disparate fields was typical for Lemelson, and can be seen in how he came up with ideas and patents for new ways of making semiconductors. While watching and reading about the problems with the heating and subsequent oxidation on heat shields of rockets re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, Lemelson realized that this same process could operate on the molecular level when electrical resistance in a silicon wafer creates an insulative barrier and thus provides for more efficient conduction of electric current.〔("Down But Not Out," Feature Article, October 2004 )〕 From 1957 on, he worked exclusively as an independent inventor. From this period onwards, Lemelson received an average of one patent a month for more than 40 years, in technological fields related to automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players.〔 As an independent inventor, Lemelson wrote, sketched and filed almost all of his patent applications himself, with little help from outside counsel.〔(Who We Are: Jerome Lemelson Biography )〕 Lemelson was described as a "workaholic", and he spent 12–14 hours a day writing up his ideas. His notebooks, in which he wrote these ideas down, numbered in the thousands.〔(Lemelson Center: Jerome Lemelson biography )〕 Lemelson's younger brother said that when he and Lemelson were roommates in college, after they would go to sleep, the light would go on several times during the night and Lemelson would write something down. In the morning, Lemelson's brother would read and witness the several inventions that Lemelson had conceived of that previous night. His brother stated, "This happened every night, seven days a week". Lemelson died in 1997, after a one-year battle with liver cancer. In the final year of his life, he applied for over 40 patents, many of them in the biomedical field related to cancer detection and treatment, including a "Computerized medical diagnostic system" () and several "Medical devices using electrosensitive gels," all issuing posthumously. In 2009, 12 years after his death, U.S. Patent No. 7,602,947, a patent for a "Facial-recognition vehicle security system," was issued in Lemelson's name.〔http://www.1201tuesday.com/1201_tuesday/lemelson/〕 Lemelson was a staunch advocate for the rights of independent inventors. He served on a federal advisory committee on patent issues from 1976 to 1979.〔 In this capacity, he advocated for a variety of issues, including protecting the secrecy of patent applications and advocating for the "first to invent" patent system.〔 In his testimony before the Patent Trademark Office Advisory Committee, he decried what he believed as an "innovation crisis", and that the barriers, such as high legal and filing costs as well as failures of the courts to protect the rights of independent inventors, were creating a negative environment for American inventors and US technological ascendancy.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jerome H. Lemelson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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