Portable Stereo Creator Gets His Due

eadint wrote to mention an International Tribune article covering Sony's settlement with the inventor of the portable stereo. From the article: "Pavel invented the device known today as the Walkman. But it took more than 25 years of battling the Sony Corporation and others in courts and patent offices around the world before he finally won the right to say it: Andreas Pavel invented the portable personal stereo player."

Slight correction

[ReformedExCon]

Pavel invented the personal portable stereo player. Sony invented the Walkman.

You wouldn't say Nintendo invented the Playstation, would you?

Re:Slight correction

[creepynut]

In a way, Nintendo helped. Sony and Nintendo were working a joint effort to make a CD-based version of the Super NES. Nintendo screwed them over, and Sony went off and made the Playstation.

Re:Slight correction

[frinsore]

Considering that the Walkman is a name brand personal stereo player and considered by the general public to be the first personal stereo player, I'd say that it is an apt summary of the situation.

And considering that Sony was manufacturing and doing R&D for Nintendo's consoles prior to the N64 and that the play station development was initiated by Nintendo, I wouldn't say that Nintendo invented the Play Station but Nintendo definetly had a hand in it's conception.
wiki [wikipedia.org]

It was already available

[NigelJohnstone]

He filed a patent in 1977 for fucks sake. Tape recorders already came in stereo, they already had headphones, they already were getting smaller, my dad had a phillips one with a battery pack and a carrying strap.

So what was his invention? What??

Similar in style to the tape recorder on this page:
http://www.superscopetechnologies.com/company/hist ory/superscopehistory.shtml [superscope...logies.com]

"In 1975, Superscope's product line included: eight portable tape recorders, six portable-cassette radio products, seven Hi Fi receivers, two tuners, three amplifiers, five stereo tape decks, six speaker models, five compact music systems, eight microphones "

The history of Grundig

[NigelJohnstone]

http://www.grundig.com/index.php?id=250 [grundig.com]

1965 The Cassette Recorder C 100 is the first cassette tape recorder made by Grundig. Recording takes place with the DC International System, on cassettes with the dimensions 120 x 77 x 12 mm.

1967 The CC Compact Cassette is introduced and can be listened to with the Cassette Tape Recorder C 200.

1974: The portable Radio Recorder C 6000 Automatic is a best-seller. Over 710,000 units are sold.

He filed for his patent in 1977.

Re:Slight correction

[damsa]

I believe the first game console was the Magnavox Odyssey, it came out before the first pong machine.

Re:Ideas are almost entirely worthless...

[Tony Hoyle]

Untrue. *many* patents are on ideas only.

It is not necessary to prove that an idea actually works before getting a patent on it.

Software and business patents are *entirely* idea based.

This is his USA 93 patent claiming 78 prioity date

[NigelJohnstone]

Yes, it was for a headphone real, but he starts out by describing a personal stereo in his claims. Which is where his claim to inventing the Walkman comes from.

Check out the pictures of his invention.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=/netah tml/srchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l= 50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=5201003.WKU.&OS=PN/5201003&RS=PN/ 5201003 [uspto.gov]
http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=US005201003&Pa geNum=2&IDKey=31D572A631C0&HomeUrl=http://patft.us pto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm %2526Sect1=PTO1%2526Sect2=HITOFF%2526p=1%2526r=1%2 526l=50%2526f=G%2526d=PALL%2526s1=5201003.WKU.%252 6OS=PN/5201003%2526RS=PN/5201003 [uspto.gov]

Obligatory

[Eli Gottlieb]

This was on Digg yesterday. And they also have a story about how some new Futurama stuff might get made.