May 4, 2012
The Patents Behind the Genius: Steve Jobs Exhibit Opens Soon at the Ripley Center
Steve Jobs' patent for the iPod classic included the scroll wheel. Image courtesy of the U.S. Patent Office.
On Wednesday, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc, was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Jobs, now a household name, is best known for his transformative inventions, the Apple computer and the iPhone. His name is on hundreds of other patents and trademarks that helped shape the iRevolution of our world: the iconic Apple logo, the “dock” design on Mac computers, the Apple power adapter, and many less-noticeable inventions that are now an intrinsic part of our daily lives.
“The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology that Changed the World,” opening next Friday, May 11, at the S. Dillon Ripley Center, will showcase 312 of these documents. The traveling exhibit includes artifacts from the American History Museum, such as a 1985 Apple Macintosh computer, a mouse and keyboard, and a 2010 iPod.
Jobs, who died on October 5, 2011 at the age of 56, co-founded Apple Computer Inc. in his parents’ garage in 1976. He sold his Volkswagen microbus to finance the project—an attempt to build a small computer for personal use. His first patent, filed with co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1980, was for a personal computer that would become one of the building blocks of the Apple Empire.
“He truly is one of the giants of innovation in this country,” says Richard Maulsby, Associate Commissioner for Innovation Development at the U.S. Patent Office, where the exhibit made its debut last year. “Only two other inventors that I can think of combined innovative genius and entrepreneurship in the same way: Walt Disney and Thomas Edison.”
The back story of the show is the process of American innovation that is at the core of the proliferation of Apple products. “Hopefully the exhibit will help people understand that this piece of paper, this patent protection, really was the foundation of Jobs’ success as an entrepreneur and brilliant marketer,” says Maulsby. “It all begins with the patent. That’s been the story of this country from the very beginning. We were the only country in the world that provided for an intellectual property protection system in its Constitution. Arguably, you could say that has been the thing that has made this such an innovative society over two centuries.”
“The Patents and Trademarks of Steve Jobs: Art and Technology that Changed the World” will be on display at the S. Dillon Ripley Center May 11 through July 8.
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I am glad he was here, and as I write this on my iMac, iPad, iPhone, wish he was still with us.
Jobs is a fraud. He did not invent the Apple computer nor any other computer. He traveled on the coat tails of Woz, who built and designed all the early Apples himself, without the help of Jobs. Also, Jobs did not invent, nor even work at Apple when the i phone was being designed and built and tested. When he returned to Apple, the i phone was all ready to go. Tht was one of may thigns that Apple made in the 12 years Jobs was NOT working at Apple. Most of teh patents Edison had were also not his, but the workers at his Menlow Park labs. but at least Edison did invent some things, Jobs never invente anything by himself. And he work at making the apple computer is minor to nothing important. Woz is the genius behind Apple, not Jobs. Jobs is just a nothing who took credit for other people’s work.
This is for Bill who seems to have a real axe to grind with Steve Jobs. In many cases where people were credited with an invention, there were many other people involved who never get their names on the patent and never get credit. That seems to be the nature of the beast, so to speak. I have read the Steve Jobs book and it gives much insight to the other people who helped develop the Apple products.
Gee Bill. You really hate Steve Jobs. It sounds almost personal. Jobs didn’t invent spell checking, so that can’t be the reason you don’t know how to use it.