Elon Musk Patent Filings > What did he invent & What was his first invention (filed as a patent)

Elon musk is single-handedly (of course with the help of his investors and very hard working employees) changing the face of three areas: Automotive, Space transportation, and Energy & Renewables.

Elon musk currently has many patent filings from Tesla; however, one of his earliest focus areas was the internet, and his company Zip2 was one of the earliest forms of internet based yellow pages.

What were the first patents filed by Elon Musk?

Musk's earliest patent filings focus on the specific area Zip2 was working on. The first patent which has Elon musk as the inventor is US5944769A, titled 'Interactive network directory service with integrated maps and directions'.

This patent focuses on combining a business directory and a map. A user can search the business directory in a variety of methods, including using aspects of the map database (i.e., a radius) to quantify the search. The user can then obtain directions from a specified user location to a selected search result. All of this is conveniently accomplished through a single website access.

Now, wait a minute! This is very similar to what we do with any map service (google maps, bing maps, apple maps) these days! However, this patent was filed in 1996 - way before we had those services.

Another patent filing having Elon musk as the inventor is US6185194B1, titled 'System and method for initiating a telephone call utilizing internet initiation'. 

It focuses on a method to in which a user provides an input to the computer to initiate a call. The call request data is received at a Web site providing the display, and is relayed over the Internet to a call center. The call center establishes the desired phone connection over the Public Switched Telephone Network.

Almost all websites and applications have a call button these these days! But this was 1997.

These are two of the earliest patent filings from Elon musk.

Sony AIBO - Robot Dog - First / Basic / Original Patent / Invention - Invented By Fujita Masahiro & Team

Sony's AIBO doesn't need an introduction. However, for the ones who don't know, AIBO (Artificial Intelligence Robot) is a series of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony.

A quick search for the earliest patents covering the robotic pet dog results in following filings from 1997, just before the announcement of a prototype by Sony (1998).

US5929585A, titled 'Robot system and its control method'

Inventors:

1. FUJITA MASAHIRO

JP11-126017, titled 'STORAGE MEDIUM, ROBOT, INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE AND ELECTRONIC PET SYSTEM'

Inventors:

1. YOKOO NAOHIRO
2. KATO YASUHIKO
3. HATTORI MASAKAZU
4. FUJITA MASAHIRO
5. KITANO HIROAKI

JP11-188678, titled 'ROBOT DEVICE

Inventors:

1. FUJITA MASAHIRO
2. OYAMA KAZUFUMI

These can be considered as the earliest patent filings on the concept, and, hence, the basic / foundation patents for AIBO pet dog from Sony.

Hats off, Fujita Masahiro and team. You guys rock!

Ball-Point Pen - Invention | Basic/Original/First Patent - John Loud & Laszlo Biro

The first ball point pen wasn't made to write on paper. It was designed to write on leather. Credit of its invention goes to John Loud, a leather tanner, who also patented it. 

The patent CA32643 was issued on 1889-10-28. Its details, PDF Copy etc aren't available.

This patent was the first patent on a pen using a rotating ball in a socket, which is the basic construction of a ballpoint pen, it can be considered as the basic or the original patent for Ballpoint pen.

However, many inventors tried their hand at developing a commercially successful ball point pen for writing on paper.

Most successful of them was LASZLO JOZSEF BIRO, a newspaper editor, who thought of using the quick drying and more viscous newspaper ink to solve problems of leaking and clogging. 

GB498997 is one of the earliest patents by Biro describing his version of a ball point pen which was effective in writing on paper and did not have any leakage problems. The patent was filed on 1938-06-15 and published on 1939-01-17.  

Smartphone / Touchscreen phone - Basic Patent | Original Patent | First Model

First Smartphone was introduced by IBM in 1993. It was named 'Simon personal communicator' or Simon. The press release for the same can be accessed at [1].

Designed by IBM, Simon offerred much more than voice communications. It was a wireless machine, a pager, an electronic mail device, a calendar, an appointment schedular, an address book, a calculator and a pen-based sketchpad. These add on features rendered Simon different than the basic cellular phone models at that time, and gave it the title Smartphone.



Since it had a touchscreen interface, it can very well be considered the first touchscreen phone.

Simon also offered a patented IBM technology called predictive keyboard, wherein it would predict the next alphabet to be typed by the user to form one of the known words and combination of words. This is similar to the T9 dictionary or many such features we take for granted in today's phones.



Since IBM's Simon was the first Smartphone and the first touchscreen based phone to be introduced in the market, the patent covering Simon can be considered the basic/foundation/original patent of Smartphone or a touchscreen based phone.

On searching the patents of IBM, I came across a design patent titled 'Computerized mobile telephone' Patent number: USD362252
Filing date: 2nd Nov 1993 and Issue date: 12th Sep 1995




The Drawings in the patent, as shown below, are a perfect match to IBM Simon model.




References
[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/bibuxton/buxtoncollection/a/pdf/press%20release%201993.pdf