About Jerome H. Lemelson

Jerome Lemelson, known to his friends and family as “Jerry” lived the quintessential American dream. The holder of more than 600 patents, Lemelson and his remarkably creative intellect touched almost every facet of our every day lives. One of the century's five most prolific inventors, Lemelson received an average of one patent a month for more than 40 years – all on his own, without support from established research institutions or corporate research and development departments.

Automated manufacturing systems and bar code readers, automatic teller machines and cordless phones, cassette players and camcorders, fax machines and personal computers – even crying baby dolls derived from Lemelson's innovations. A universal robot that could measure, weld, rivet, transport and even inspect for quality control utilized a new technology: machine vision. This was his breakthrough invention and the one of which he was most proud, despite the hundreds of others he produced during his 45-year career

Biography

Born July 18, 1923 on Staten Island in New York City, Lemelson was the oldest of three brothers. He showed talent for inventing at a young age and first invented a lighted tongue depressor that he made for his father, a physician. After high school he attended New York University (NYU), until World War II interrupted his education. He left school to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a designer of weapons and other systems. After the war ended he returned to NYU and graduated in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering and two master's degrees, one in aeronautical and one in industrial engineering.

About 20 years after a first meeting as children, Lemelson married Dorothy Ginsberg in 1954. They had two sons: Eric, born in 1959, and Robert, born in 1961.

After graduation, Lemelson worked as an engineer for several companies, including an aircraft manufacturer, a metal refiner, and a weather balloon company. In his spare time, he continued inventing things and applying for patents. He was awarded his first patent in 1953 for a toy cap, a variation of the propeller beanie.

The couple lived in several different places over the years before calling Incline Village, Nevada, home. They started out in Metuchen, New Jersey, where Jerry worked out of a workshop in the attic. Dorothy, an interior designer who studied at the Parsons School of Design, ran her interior design business from a first-floor studio. By 1958 Lemelson quit his job and became a full-time inventor and Dorothy supported the family with her salary well into the mid-1960s.

Lemelson became one of the few people able to make a living as an independent inventor. He never specialized in a single field, but constantly looked for innovative ways to solve problems in many different areas. He was known for waking up in the middle of the night with a solution to a problem that had been on his mind, but he would also come up with ideas unrelated to anything he had ever done before.

His first experience with patent infringement left him stunned, and ultimately led to his crusade to defend the rights of independent inventors against corporate giants. After conceiving an idea for a cut-out face mask that could be printed on the back of a cereal box, he filed for a patent and then took the concept to a major cereal manufacturer. The company rejected his idea, but about three years later began packaging its cereal boxes with a mask on the back. Lemelson filed suit but the case was dismissed from court and dismissed again on an appeal. It was to be the first of many courtroom battles.

As his list of inventions grew, Lemelson found himself spending more and more time defending patents in courts. He was involved in more than 20 cases, and he lost more times than he won.

In 1996, Lemelson was diagnosed with liver cancer, and not surprisingly he fought it the best way he knew how, by inventing improvements to medical devices and cancer treatment methodologies. He submitted nearly 40 patent applications during the last year of his life. Lemelson died on October 1, 1997, at the age of 74.