David Kappos, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property said “This exhibit commemorates the far-reaching impact of Steve Jobs’ entrepreneurship and innovation on our daily lives,” he also added, “His patents and trademarks provide a striking example of the importance intellectual property plays in the global marketplace.”

Now there is no doubt that Steve Jobs and Apple have had a major impact on the consumer electronics market, but to say they show the importance of Intellectual Property is going a little too far. The USPTO has been criticized in the past for appearing to award Apple patents even before checking for prior art on the patent in question. Most recently they awarded one for slide to unlock feature on Apple’s iOS devices despite that having been used previously on other touch screen devices.

The USPTO has done exhibits like this before usually shortly after the person in questions death. Still we took a look back and found that only two others given a full exhibit like this since 1995. These were two musicians;
Les Paul 2009 9-15-2009
Michael Jackson 9-12-2009

Oddly there are no other inventors from the computer or consumer electronics industry that have been given this type of treatment that we could find.  However there were notable people that helped to bring about the modern computer era that also passed this year.
Jean Bartik – was a pioneer in inventing software for use in digital computing
John McCarthy – Coined the Term AI and helped to usher in the AI era
Ken Olsen – Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation

Read the full press release here
Photo Credit Apple Tribu

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