In 1968, with Polaroid now established as one of Kodak’s top corporate customers, Land showed Kodak executives the prototype for a new generation of Polaroid film, seeking its help with its commercialization. It helped with the transition of Polaroid’s technology from the laboratory to a manufacturing facility, and produced the negative components Polaroid incorporated into each of its one-step films. Through the following decades, Kodak continued to work with Polaroid on each new one-step film that it developed, from sepia to black-and-white, and then to color. When Polaroid finally had a product ready for commercialization, it was Kodak to whom Land turned for help in the manufacture of its film. Ironically, it would be the patent system that Land would one day have to rely on in order to save his company. It was in this anti-patent environment that the patent struggle between Polaroid and Kodak over instant photography technology began. Yet the patent system sailed in rough seas for years to come. From then on, Land was dubbed “Champion of Patents.” General Electric’s general patent counsel called it “the most impressive and significant statement on this subject that has been made in many years.” The text, in its entirety, was published in the Harvard Business Review, and many corporations distributed copies to their executives. The patent community received Land’s speech enthusiastically. Without the protection of the patent system, young scientific entrepreneurs cannot be counted on to develop the rest. Only a handful of these will be explored by large corporations, leaving many areas untouched. There are a thousand new fields ready to be opened. It should be the role of our patent system to bring encouragement, a sense of reward, and a stimulus to prompt publication to men in applied science. Land accepted the challenge, presenting an impassioned defense of and rationale for the patent system, in particular its vital importance to the small corporation and the young scientific entrepreneur: In an attempt to counter the negative view of the patent system, the Boston Patent Law Association invited Land to address its 1959 annual dinner, an event that would include the elite of the field, along with a host of federal judges. The Patent Office issued fewer patents and declared more patents invalid and thus unenforceable when challenged in court. As a result, an anti-patent attitude arose in the courts and in Congress that persisted into the 1970s. In this era, patents began to be seen as part of the problem, as a means for large corporations to amass monopolies in their fields. The emergence of huge and powerful American companies brought with it the anti-monopoly fears that led to the development of antitrust law. While the patent system certainly contributed to the progress of technology through the Industrial Revolution, attitudes toward the system began to change in the early decades of the 20th century. The patent system changed this, secured to the inventor for a limited time exclusive use of his inventions, and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in discovery and production of new and useful things. inventors behind only Thomas Edison and one of Edison’s associates.īefore any man might instantly use what another man had invented, so that the inventor had no special advantage from his invention. When he died in 1991, Land had 535 patents in his name, third on the list of U.S. He would then go on to become one of the most prolific inventors in history. This early patent protection allowed Land to successfully commercialize his invention and build a large company by keeping competitors at bay. ![]() Through a friend he was introduced to Donald Brown, a young patent attorney who would secure a patent on Land’s new material. Today, plastic polarizers are found in everything from car windshields to LCD screens.īut before showing polaroid to anyone, Land sought legal protection. He successfully embedded tiny crystals into a thin plastic sheet and named his invention “polaroid.” Land’s polaroid would become ubiquitous technology, of course: Eastman Kodak used it for camera lenses. ![]() The teenage Land developed a more useful material to polarize light. ![]() The process of polarization-removing glare from bright light-had until then always required large pieces of crystal rock. He had to finish his experiments on an invention he thought had tremendous commercial potential: the plastic polarizer. In 1928, a 19-year-old Edwin Land, who would later become the father of instant photography and the founder of Polaroid, dropped out of Harvard before the end of his freshman year.
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