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Indian bags 100 patents at Xerox
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 08 January 2004, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: India is clearly the flavour of the times we are living in, even in the field of patents. An Indian scientist working for the Xerox Corporation in Canada, Raj Patel, earned a rare distinction when he was awarded his 100th patent in the US towards December end, reports an Indian daily.
In fact, he became only the second scientist in the company to have bagged 100 international patents. Patel, a 25-year veteran of the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, is one of the company's top experts in toner technology.
His most recent patent No. 6,664,017 was awarded for expanding Xerox's document security know-how. The invention covers two new ways to apply glossy white toner marks - either visible to the eye at a certain angle or visible only under ultraviolet light - on documents for security or authentication purposes. Key potential uses for the invention include sports tickets, manufacturers' coupons and currency.
This rare accomplishment capped a year in which Xerox and its subsidiaries earned 628 US utility patents on new materials, new technologies and new ways of processing documents, bringing its total US patents earned to nearly 16,000 - a sum matched by only a handful of the most creative companies in the US. Before this, only nine scientists in Xerox's 98-year history had reached the 100-patent milestone.
Besides Patel, another young Xerox scientist specialized in perfecting a critical printer part called a photoreceptor. He also won a record 100th patent for this. The work of Robert Yu, a 22-year-old physical polymer chemist in the supplies delivery unit, is at the heart of more than 50 different models of Xerox monochrome and color copiers, printers, and printing and publishing systems.
Yu's 100th patent was awarded in mid-December and describes a method for eliminating curl on flexible photoreceptor belts, resulting in higher productivity, longer belt life and improved image quality.
In addition to Patel's and Yu's patents, other new inventions from Xerox researchers this year cover software architecture for Internet document delivery, plastic materials that conduct electricity, smart systems for self-diagnosing and self-repairing printers and copiers, and novel techniques to improve document image quality.
Both patents were among the 628 total patents issued to Xerox - including to its Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) subsidiary - by the US Patent and Trademark Office in 2003. In addition, Xerox's joint-venture partner in Japan, Fuji Xerox, received about 170 more, raising the overall patent count for the group to almost 800 in the year.
Despite bagging close to 16,000 US patents since the company's founding, Xerox is still far behind the other elite US research-led corporations such as IBM, General Electric and ATT/Lucent as the country's most prolific generator of inventions.
(Source: Economic Times)