The National Inventors Hall of Fame [1] added its latest class of inductees for 2005 [2]. The new inductees include the inventors of Streptomycin and the photocopier along with Grammy-Award winner Les Paul [3], inventor of the solid body electric guitar [4] in 1946.
The 2005 honorees are:
LIVING
C. Donald Bateman: Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS);
Robert Gundlach: Modern photocopier;
Alec Jeffreys: Genetic fingerprinting;
Dean Kamen: AutoSyringe;
Les Paul: Solid-body electric guitar;
Leo Sternbach: Valium.
POSTHUMOUS RECOGNITION
Matthias Baldwin: Steam locomotive;
Clarence Birdseye: Frozen foods;
Leopold Godowsky, Leopold Mannes: Kodachrome color film;
Garrett Morgan: Gas mask, traffic signal;
Glenn Seaborg: Plutonium isolation;
Jacob Rabinow: Optical character recognition;
Selman Waksman: Streptomycin.
Inventors may be nominated by anyone for induction into the Hall of Fame, but they must hold a U.S. patent to be considered. The nominee’s invention must have contributed to the welfare of society and have promoted the progress of science and the useful arts.
The not-for-profit National Inventors Hall of Fame, located in Akron, Ohio, was founded in 1973 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [5] and the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Association.