Decision made on computer patent

© by Mark Ollig

On June 1, 1971, Judge Earl R. Larson oversaw the start of the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand patent infringement case in Minneapolis.

The case focused on Honeywell’s legal challenge against Sperry Rand regarding its US Patent No. 3,120,606 for the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), which was then considered the first electronic digital computer.

In 1943, John William Mauchly and John Presper Eckert began building the ENIAC digital computer.

They completed the computer in 1947 and were subsequently granted US Patent No. 3,120,606.

In 1950, Sperry Rand acquired the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation from John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert, along with their patent.

The following year, Sperry Rand changed the name of an updated ENIAC to UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer).

However, we need to go back to 1937 when John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry began working on their electronic digital computer in the physics building at Iowa State College.

By 1939, a fully-functional electronic digital computer prototype solving linear equations and mathematical problems using binary calculations was completed.

Atanasoff and Berry named their computing system the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC).

The ABC became fully operational in 1942, one year before Mauchly and Eckert began work on the ENIAC.

During the 1971 patent infringement court case, testimony from John Atanasoff was presented by Honeywell, Inc.

Sperry Rand was demanding royalty payments from computer makers, arguing they alone owned the patent of the first electronic digital computer.

John Atanasoff provided evidence and testimony (Clifford Berry passed away eight years earlier at age 45) to prove Sperry Rand’s patent was not for the first electronic digital computer.

During the court case, it was revealed John Mauchly obtained engineering designs and other information about the Atanasoff-Berry Computer when he visited Iowa State College in June 1941 and met with John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry.

Mauchly acknowledged being in Ames, IA, from June 13 to 18, 1941, at the home of John Atanasoff. He discussed computer theory and design with Atanasoff and Berry during this time.

John Mauchly verified that he studied the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in Iowa State College’s physics building.

On Oct. 19, 1973, the Minneapolis Court concluded in a 248-page decision that John William Mauchly and John Presper Eckert Jr. incorporated designs from the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in developing the ENIAC.

The US Minneapolis federal court judge had ruled in favor of Honeywell.

Judge Earl R. Larson concluded, “Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff.”

Larson concluded that Atanasoff and Berry had initially designed a functional prototype of an electronic digital computer using basic principles.

And so, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Edward Berry are recognized as the original inventors of the first electronic digital computer, thus ushering in the modern computer industry.

So, who legally holds the computer patent?

According to the court ruling, nobody had the patent rights to the computer, resulting in Sperry Rand’s ENIAC/UNIVAC computer patent being invalidated and their legal right to charge royalties being terminated.

Anyone can build a computer without paying royalties.

It’s worth noting that computer software patents can be obtained. In 2022, the top 15 software companies were awarded 50,981 US patents.

John William Mauchly died Jan. 8, 1980, at age 72.

On June 3, 1995, John Presper Eckert, Jr., passed away at 76.

John Vincent Atanasoff died at age 91 June 15, 1995.

A year before John Atanasoff passed away, a group from Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory began rebuilding a replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

Original parts from the computer, such as a memory drum and vacuum tubes, were found in storage at Iowa State University.

The group also referred to John Atanasoff's engineering design notes.

On Oct. 8, 1997, a working replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was successfully demonstrated, serving as both a tribute and validation of the pioneering work of John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Edward Berry, who built the first-ever electronic digital computer.

In a 1984 interview, Atanasoff said, “He [John Mauchly] told me he had invented a new method of computing that was different from mine and much better. I believed him. All I want is for the world to know the truth about what I did.”

Atanasoff drawing of a three-by-seven-inch paper punch card featured holes that represented binary “ones.”
The non-holed empty spaces, pre-stamped as “-” represented binary “zeros.”

Working replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer

Who owns the computer patent?

© by Mark Ollig

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry began constructing an electronic digital computer named the Atanasoff-Berry Computer at the physics building of Iowa State College in 1937.

A working prototype was completed in 1939, and their computer was fully operational by 1942.

Soon after, a patent lawyer named Richard R. Trexler, originally from Minnesota but working in Chicago, was hired to obtain a patent for the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

Unfortunately, the patent was never obtained due to the outbreak of World War II.

In July 1943, John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert Jr. began constructing their computer with funding provided by the US Army through Project PX.

Project PX was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).

J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly founded the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in March 1946.

By 1947, Mauchly and Eckert Jr. completed the ENIAC and filed a US patent application for an electronic digital computer.

EMCC was sold to Remington Rand, Inc. in 1950, which merged with the Sperry Corporation in 1955 to form Sperry Rand Corporation, aka Sperry Rand.

Sperry Rand made some improvements to the ENIAC and renamed it the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer).

On Oct. 30, 1963, Clifford Edward Berry, of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, died at age 45 in Long Island, NY.

On Feb. 4, 1964, John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert Jr. were granted US Patent No. 3,120,606  for the ENIAC, which was then thought to be the first electronic digital computer. 

Sperry Rand obtained the patent rights and began seeking royalty payments from competitive computer manufacturers.

The battle is about to begin.

In May 1967, Sperry Rand sued Honeywell Corporation of Minneapolis for patent infringement and demanded royalty payments.

Their lawsuit claimed that Honeywell had violated Sperry Rand’s computer patent obtained from Mauchly and Eckert.

In Minneapolis, Honeywell Corporation filed a countersuit against Sperry Rand, accusing them of monopolizing the market and committing fraud. They also argued that their ENIAC computer patent was invalid and should be nullified.

On June 1, 1971, the court case of Sperry Rand Corp. versus Honeywell, Inc. was presided over by Judge Earl R. Larson in the US Federal District Court building in Minneapolis.

Honeywell, Inc. sought to prove that John Mauchly acquired engineering designs and information for the ENIAC computer he co-created with Eckert Jr. from the Atanasoff-Berry Computer during his visit to Iowa State College in June 1941.

John V. Atanasoff would testify for Honeywell Inc. in a legal case challenging Sperry Rand’s ownership claim to the first electronic digital computer patent.

“The patent, issued Feb. 4, 1964, involves a high speed, large scale digital computer known as the ENIAC computer,” the court records stated.

At the court case, Atanasoff claimed that Sperry Rand had copied the design of his Atanasoff-Berry Computer when describing their ENIAC patent.

To support his claim, Atanasoff provided tangible evidence that he originated the idea for an electronic digital computer in 1937, explaining how he had built the computer’s electronic circuits and used binary digits and capacitors to process data.

Atanasoff testified, “During the morning, I took pains to show him [Mauchly] a copy of a document I have before me,” he said while holding a 35-page booklet with a green cover from August 1940 describing the Atanasoff Berry Computer design, electrical components, and construction, along with his hand-sketched drawings.

The booklet was nearly a step-by-step blueprint for constructing an electronic digital computer.

“He had a copy of this document while he was visiting and asked me if he could take it back with him,” Atanasoff said, testifying he had observed Mauchly reading it at length.

During their correspondence, Atanasoff testified Mauchly expressed interest in constructing a similar computer. 

Mauchly acknowledged visiting John Atanasoff’s Ames, IA, home from June 13 to 18, 1941 and discussed computer theory and design with Atanasoff and Berry. He also examined the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in the Iowa State College physics building.

On Oct. 19, 1973, the Minneapolis Court determined that John Mauchly, and John Presper Eckert Jr., used designs from the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in developing the ENIAC.

The US federal court judge had ruled in favor of Honeywell. 

Judge Earl R. Larson concluded, “Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff.”

The court also ruled that John Vincent Atanasoff should be recognized as the original inventor of the first electronic digital computer.

So, who owns the computer patent? 

No one. 

The court ruled Sperry Rand’s computer patent had no legal binding and was nullified. As a result, anyone can now build a computer without legal restrictions.

A team from Iowa State University/Ames Laboratory started rebuilding the Atanasoff-Berry Computer in 1994. They referred to Atanasoff’s notes and discovered some of the computer’s original components in storage, including the memory drum and vacuum tubes.

John Vincent Atanasoff died in Mount Airy, MA, on June 15, 1995, aged 91.

On Oct. 8, 1997, a functioning replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was successfully demonstrated.

John Vincent Atanasoff receiving the
"United States National Medal of Technology"
from US President George H. W. Bush. 
(1990)

The Atanasoff-Berry digital computer

© by Mark Ollig

A young individual’s extraordinary life journey began in 1913 when he was shown a mathematical tool called a slide rule.

John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, NY, Oct. 4, 1903.

He was still nine years old in 1913 when his father, Ivan, an electrical engineer, purchased a brand new Dietzgen slide rule.

For young people, think of a slide rule as a mechanical analog computing device.

John was fascinated with the slide rule and became proficient in its use.

His curiosity about mathematics led him to take apart an early 1900s Monroe calculating machine to learn how it provided the correct answers.

Iva, a mathematician, and John’s mother, helped him understand arithmetic textbooks covering the base-10 (decimal) and other numbering systems, including the base-2 (binary) system.

Early in high school, John decided mathematical physics would become his life’s work.

“The Theory of Functions of a Real Variable and the Theory of Fourier’s Series” by mathematician Ernest William Hobson was a book employing base-2 numbers John had read with great interest.

In 1925, John Atanasoff received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Florida.

During the same year, while attending Iowa State College (Iowa State University), he earned a master’s degree in mathematics.

In 1930, Atanasoff completed his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin; he then returned to Iowa State College, where he taught mathematics and physics.

By 1936, Atanasoff was an associate professor of math and physics at Iowa State College and studied electronics.

Recognizing the potential of binary numbers to represent all combinations using “one” and “zero,” he designed an electronic digital computing machine with logic gates using Boolean expressions to solve mathematical problems faster and more accurately than the existing mechanical analog devices.

In 1937, Atanasoff and an Iowa State college student named Clifford Berry began constructing an electronic digital computer in the basement of the Iowa State Physics building.

The computer used thyratron and thermionic vacuum tubes, resistors, condensers (capacitors) for data storage, electronic circuits to perform arithmetical operations, electromechanical relay switches, and an estimated mile of copper wiring.

The human operator’s computer control console included a variety of switches, buttons, meters, and lights.

The computer utilized a mechanical cam-driven rotational feed-in binary-card device that employed paper punch cards for in and output data.

The three-by-seven-inch paper punch card featured holes that represented binary “ones” arranged in rows and columns, while the non-holed empty spaces, pre-stamped as “-” represented binary “zeros.”

Numerical input data from a human operator used a mechanical keypunch apparatus to cut holes into the paper punch cards at specific locations. They were then fed into the computer for processing.

On the paper punch card, an arc hole symbolized a binary “one,” formed by an electrical discharge from the computer’s output via thyratron gas-filled tubes. Conversely, the lack of electrical discharge represented a zero, indicated on the card by the default “-” stamp.

In 1939, a functional electronic digital computer prototype using binary digital calculations named the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was built. It operated on 120VAC 60Hz power.

The ABC used arithmetic logic circuits, a binary arithmetic system, serial calculations, and parallel processing as fundamental components of its design.

The computer would “read” or detect the presence or absence of a binary value of one or zero on punch cards by passing a low electrical current through the holes on the cards, completing a circuit without any damage.

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer used 280 dual-triode vacuum tubes to perform digital computations.

Some of the computer’s parts were telephone switching relays.

The computer’s memory contained 1,600 regenerative charged capacitors on 32 spheroidal bands inside rotating drum cylinders.

Insulated capacitors are positioned radially within a hollow cylinder drum made of Bakelite (a synthetic plastic).

The capacitors’ inner connector terminals are joined to a shared wiring lead, while the outer terminals are connected to contacts that pass through the cylinder wall.

The computer’s regenerative capacitor memory stores a maximum of 3,000 bits. Each capacitor represents a binary bit value of zero or one, as its electrical charge determines the bit value.

The capacitors require periodic refreshing; however, their data can stay intact for up to five minutes before the charge dissipates.

The ABC, weighing approximately 700 pounds and occupying a space similar to an office desk, could execute 30 calculations per second and solve 29 linear equations simultaneously.

From 1939 to 1940, Iowa State College Research provided $1,500 (equivalent to $32,000 today) to support the construction of the computer.

On Jan. 15, 1941, the Des Moines Tribune newspaper reported, “An electrical computing machine said here to operate more like the human brain than any other such machine known to exist is being built by Dr. John V. Atanasoff, Iowa State college physics professor.”

By 1942, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the first electronic linear algebraic digital computer, was completed.

The same year, Atanasoff left to serve in WWII, and Clifford Berry transitioned to a career in the private sector.

Next week’s column covers the legal battle at the Federal District Courthouse in Minneapolis between the Atanasoff-Berry Computer and a computer initially named “Project X.”

Reconstructed replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer

 at Durham Center, located at Iowa State University.

From page 24 of Atanasoff's book of his diagram showing
 the binary holes on a paper punch card used by the computer

President George H. W. Bush awarded John Vincent Atanasoff 
 the United States National Medal of Technology (1990)

Minnesotan ‘fueled’ Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo

© by Mark Ollig

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said these words in an address before a joint session of Congress.

A man from northern Minnesota played a significant role in achieving Kennedy’s goal.

Robert Rowe Gilruth was born Oct. 8, 1913, in Nashwauk and relocated to Duluth with his family when he was nine.

His father, Henry, served as the principal of Morgan Park High School in Duluth, and his mother, Francis, worked as a mathematics teacher.

In 1935, Robert Gilruth enrolled at the University of Minnesota and earned a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering. He finished his studies in 1936 after earning a Master of Science degree.

He also received honorary doctoral degrees from five universities.

On Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik, the first earth-orbiting satellite, was launched by the Soviet Union.

“I can recall watching the sunlight reflect off of Sputnik as it passed over my home on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia,” Dr. Gilruth said in 1972.

Then, Nov. 3, 1957, the Soviet Union put the first living creature, a dog named Laika, into Earth orbit aboard Sputnik 2.

“When I witnessed the dog’s launch, I immediately realized that we needed to start preparing. I was certain that the Russians were planning to send a human into space,” Dr. Gilruth said.

On Aug. 1, 1958, Dr. Gilruth presented testimony to Congress regarding human-crewed US space missions.

In November 1958, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth was chosen to lead the Space Task Group at Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. This group was responsible for planning, creating, and launching spacecraft for NASA’s Project Mercury.

“A lot of people wanted to call it the task force. I didn’t think that was a good thing, task force. It was a group,” Dr. Gilruth said during an interview in 1972.

Dr. Gilruth’s apprehensions in 1957 about the possibility of Russia launching a human into space were confirmed April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, completed a single orbit of Earth aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft, attaining an altitude of 187 miles and spending one hour and 48 minutes in space.

On May 5, 1961, American astronaut Alan Shepard took a 15-minute space flight aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft. Although he reached a height of 115 miles, he didn’t go around the Earth in a complete orbit.

Although the US put an American into space, people still considered the Soviet Union ahead in the space race.

In an archived interview with the John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, Dr. Gilruth remembered President Kennedy’s enthusiasm for human spaceflights and meeting soon after Shepard’s suborbital mission.

“We sat in his office with Senator Kerr [Robert S. Kerr] and maybe one or two other senators. He [President Kennedy] had us all sit with him in a circle around his rocking chair,” Dr. Gilruth said.

After this meeting with President Kennedy, Dr. Gilruth would attend several others.

“Going to the Moon will take new rockets, new technology, and if you want to do that, I think our country could probably win because we’d both have to start from scratch.” Dr. Gilruth said to Kennedy during one meeting.

“Look, I want to be first. Now do something,” Kennedy countered.

“Shortly after this meeting in the White House we just discussed, the President made his famous speech [May 25, 1961] declaring that flight to the moon would be a very worthy goal,” Dr. Gilruth said.

On Sept. 19, 1961, NASA announced that its new $60 million space flight center would be located in Houston, TX, on 1,000 acres of land provided by Rice University.

In November 1961, Dr. Gilruth became the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, its mission control center responsible for conducting space flights.

On Sept. 17, 1962, the Minneapolis Star newspaper had a headline saying, “Nine Astronauts Win Places on Space Team.”

The newspaper reported, “Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, director of the manned spacecraft center, formally presented the new group to the nation at a news conference.”

Neil A. Armstrong was one of the astronauts in the group. On July 20, 1969, he was the first to walk on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.

As director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center until January 1972, Dr. Gilruth oversaw 25 crewed space flights.

The NASA Manned Spacecraft Center was renamed Johnson Space Center Feb. 17, 1973.

Dr. Gilruth resigned from NASA in December 1973.

“I think the most satisfying thing to me is the memory of all of the years and the developments over those years, to have been an active participant in so many of the great things that the United States of America has done in aviation and in space flight,” Dr. Gilruth said March 2, 1987.

“There is no question that without Bob Gilruth, there would not have been a Mercury, Gemini, or an Apollo program,” said George M. Low, NASA deputy administrator from 1969 to 1976.

On Aug. 17, 2000, Dr. Robert Rowe “Bob” Gilruth, a native Minnesotan who fueled the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs, passed away at age 86.

President Kennedy holds a scale model of the Apollo command 

module, presented to him by the Director of the Manned Spacecraft

Center, Dr. Robert Gilruth; a mock-up of the Apollo lunar module 

lander sits at left in the background.