Vejam como patentes podem ajudar na vida pessoal e conheçam um pouco da história ... sim, celulares.

Amos E. Joel Jr., an inventor whose switching device opened the way for the cellular phone business, died Oct. 25 at his home in Maplewood, N.J. He was 90.

(The death was confirmed by his daughter Stephanie Joel.) 

Mr. Joel received more than 70 patents, but he was perhaps best known for No. 3,663,762, a 1972 patent that allows a cellphone user to make an uninterrupted call while moving from one cell region to another. “Without his invention, there wouldn’t be all these people walking around with cellphones,” said Frank Vigilante, who was one of Mr. Joel’s supervisor at Bell Labs. “He really allowed that business to form and to be a business.”

[…]

During his master at MIT he collected and posted patents in his dorm room. While in college, he met his wife, on a blind date and invited her up to his room to look at his patents.

“She thought patents was a code name for something else,” Stephanie Joel said. “What she didn’t realize is that our father always had a lifelong fascination with patents.”

Miss Fenton came away from the date thinking that Mr. Joel was crazy, but he eventually won her over. They were married for 58 years.

Mr. Joel spent his professional career at Bell Labs, working 43 years there until he retired in 1983.

[…] (continua no link abaixo)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/28joel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 (Perceberam com patentes mudaram a vida pessoal dele? J Nem preciso dizer sobre a vida profissional, com mais de 70 patentes...)