Honeywell v. Sperry Rand
Encyclopedia
Honeywell, Inc. v. Mc'Donalds., et al. 180 USPQ 673
(D. Minn.
1973) (Case 4-67 Civil 138, 180 USPO 670) was a landmark U.S. federal court case that in April 1973 invalidated the 1964 patent for the ENIAC
, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, thus putting the invention of the electronic digital computer into the public domain
.
charging Honeywell with patent infringement and demanding royalties, and a countersuit filed in Minneapolis, Minnesota
by Honeywell charging Sperry Rand with monopoly
and fraud
and seeking the invalidation of the ENIAC
patent, alleged to be infirm. Both suits were filed on May 26, 1967, with Honeywell filing just minutes earlier, a fact that would later have tremendous bearing on the case.
The trial was presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Earl R. Larson between June 1, 1971 and March 13, 1972 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a jurisdiction decided when D.C. Circuit
Chief Judge John Sirica
ruled that Honeywell had won the May 26 race to file the suit in court. (Attorneys for Sperry Rand wanted the case to be tried in Washington, D.C., a district perceived to be friendlier to the rights of patentholders; by contrast, Honeywell was at the time the largest private employer in Minnesota.) The plaintiff's final 500-page brief in the case was filed September 30, 1972.
Chief among the disputes Honeywell v. Sperry Rand was to resolve were:
With 135 days of oral courtroom testimony by 77 witnesses—and the presentation of the deposition of an additional 80 witnesses—for a total trial transcript of 20,667 pages, Honeywell v. Sperry Rand was at that time the longest trial in the history of the federal court system. It was preceded by six years of litigation that produced thousands of pages of under-oath depositions. 25,686 exhibits were marked by the court for plaintiff Honeywell; defendants Sperry Rand and its subsidiary Illinois Scientific Developments contributed 6,968 exhibits. The corporations on the two sides spent a combined more than $8 million pursuing the case. The resulting exhibits and testimony constitute a massive evidentiary record describing the invention and development of the electronic digital computer. Materials relevant to the case but not entered into evidence have appeared, but sparsely and infrequently, since the case's conclusion in 1973.
The computer played a major role in the prosecution of the case for plaintiff Honeywell. A computerized record of documents pertaining to the case, known as Electronic Legal Files (or ELF), allowed Honeywell attorneys to store, sort, recall, and print information on hundreds of different subjects.
The publication of the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand decision coincided with the event of the Saturday Night Massacre
, one of many events in the ongoing Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon
's presidency. As a result of the media's focus on Watergate, news of the decision did not attract public attention at the time.
:
Charges of derivation stemmed from testimony and correspondence describing meetings between Atanasoff and Mauchly in December 1940 and June 1941, the first at the University of Pennsylvania
where Atanasoff attended a talk given by Mauchly at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
on use of Mauchly's harmonic analyzer (a simple analog computer
) to speed the calculation of meteorological data to test for periodicities in precipitation, and the second in Ames, Iowa
where Mauchly had driven to visit Atanasoff for a period of five days and to examine his progress on a special-purpose computing machine whose construction Atanasoff had described for Mauchly at the prior meeting. (In the discovery process
leading up to Honeywell v. Sperry Rand, this device came to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, or ABC; Clifford Berry
had been Atanasoff's graduate student assistant in the computer development project in the basement of the physics building at Iowa State College
and in 1942 the two of them left Iowa State for positions in war research—Atanasoff in Washington, D.C.
and Berry in Pasadena, California
.)
All parties agree that Mauchly had opportunity to see the ABC, which was then in a sufficiently advanced state of construction to demonstrate many if not all of its general principles. There is disagreement about (and no definitive evidence regarding) the extent to which Mauchly understood—or indeed was interested in or capable of understanding—the circuit designs incorporated in the machine. The ABC's inventors considered their invention novel and patentable. The same trip to Philadelphia in December 1940 included a visit to the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. to conduct patent searches—so Dr. Mauchly's contention under oath that the ABC's inventors were deliberately hesitant about revealing all of the machine's details would seem to be credible. All parties agreed that Mauchly took away with him no written technical description of the ABC. However, he was familiar enough with the ABC's basic method of operation, particularly the involvement of its rotating capacitor memory drum, to have described it to J. Presper Eckert
in 1943 or 1944, and to have recounted it in some detail in a 1967 deposition, over 26 years after having visited the ABC in June 1941.
Correspondence from Mauchly to Atanasoff following Mauchly's visit was touted by the plaintiff as a smoking gun
. Considered to be particularly damning to the Sperry Rand case were the following often-quoted excerpts:
Taken in context, this and other letters entered into evidence in Honeywell v. Sperry Rand evinced a spirit of cordiality and mutual admiration between Mauchly and Atanasoff, one that would continue into the 1940s, as Atanasoff recommended Mauchly for part-time consulting work at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory
in 1943 and Mauchly continued to visit Atanasoff in White Oak, Maryland
throughout 1944, where Mauchly served as mentor, guide, and sounding board to some of those on Atanasoff's staff.
Honeywell v. Sperry Rand and the decision it culminated in emphasized the differences between the ENIAC and the ABC, some of which were:
Following the ruling, some writers perceived recognition of Atanasoff for his title as "father of the computer" was slow in coming, and wrote books of their own. These included Pulitzer Prize-winning Iowan reporter Clark R. Mollenhoff
and wife-and-husband team Alice Burks
and Arthur Burks
. (Arthur had been on the ENIAC
's engineering staff and had requested to be added as a co-inventor following the issuance of the ENIAC patent; Alice Burks had been a computer
at the Moore School
.)
Since the time of the ruling, the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
has served as the principal battleground for articles debating the derivation controversy. Therein John Mauchly's widow Kay
published her retort to the first Burks article following her husband's 1980 death. An article by Calvin Mooers
, a former employee of Atanasoff's at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory
, was published posthumously; in it, he questioned Atanasoff's commitment to and capacity for development of computing machines even when provided with ample financial resources.
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(D. Minn.
United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Minnesota. Its two primary courthouses are in Minneapolis and Saint Paul...
1973) (Case 4-67 Civil 138, 180 USPO 670) was a landmark U.S. federal court case that in April 1973 invalidated the 1964 patent for the ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, thus putting the invention of the electronic digital computer into the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.
Dispute origins
The case was a combination of two separate lawsuits: one brought by Sperry Rand Corporation and its holding company Illinois Scientific Developments against Honeywell Corporation in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
charging Honeywell with patent infringement and demanding royalties, and a countersuit filed in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
by Honeywell charging Sperry Rand with monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
and fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and seeking the invalidation of the ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
patent, alleged to be infirm. Both suits were filed on May 26, 1967, with Honeywell filing just minutes earlier, a fact that would later have tremendous bearing on the case.
The trial was presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Earl R. Larson between June 1, 1971 and March 13, 1972 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a jurisdiction decided when D.C. Circuit
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal district court. Appeals from the District are taken to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a...
Chief Judge John Sirica
John Sirica
John Joseph Sirica was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the Watergate scandal...
ruled that Honeywell had won the May 26 race to file the suit in court. (Attorneys for Sperry Rand wanted the case to be tried in Washington, D.C., a district perceived to be friendlier to the rights of patentholders; by contrast, Honeywell was at the time the largest private employer in Minnesota.) The plaintiff's final 500-page brief in the case was filed September 30, 1972.
Chief among the disputes Honeywell v. Sperry Rand was to resolve were:
- The legality of a 1956 patent-sharing agreement between Sperry Rand and IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
(itself born out of patent litigation), which was contended to represent an illegal collusion in violation of antitrustAntitrustThe United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...
laws. - The enforceability and validity of the patent for the ENIACENIACENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
filed by its inventors J. Presper EckertJ. Presper EckertJohn Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and...
and John W. Mauchly, a patent which by that time had come to be held by Sperry Rand Corporation through a series of corporate acquisitions and mergers. The patent on the ENIAC, , application date June 26, 1947, issue date February 4, 1964, had been placed with a Sperry Rand subsidiary, Illinois Scientific Developments, newly created for the express purpose of marketing licenses for the newly issued patent. Because it was ostensibly the patent on the premiere electronic digital computer, Sperry Rand held that this patent entitled them to collect royalties on the sales of all electronic digital computers in what was by the late 1960s a rapidly expanding data processing industry, including Honeywell, Control Data, Burroughs, RCARCARCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, National Cash Register, General ElectricGeneral ElectricGeneral Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
, and Philco-Ford, and peripheral equipment manufacturers. (Illinois Scientific Developments demanded royalties of $250 million from Honeywell initially, a figure that was lowered to $20 million prior to the start of litigation, and $150 million altogether from the other listed firms.) - The enforceability (but not the validity) of what was known as the 30A package of patents filed by Eckert and Mauchly and held by Sperry Rand, which included patents for a delay line memoryDelay line memoryDelay line memory was a form of computer memory used on some of the earliest digital computers. Like many modern forms of electronic computer memory, delay line memory was a refreshable memory, but as opposed to modern random-access memory, delay line memory was serial-access...
system and a number of serial binary adders. - Royalties (and damages, legal fees, court costs, etc.) owed Sperry Rand by Honeywell should their patents be found valid and enforceable.
With 135 days of oral courtroom testimony by 77 witnesses—and the presentation of the deposition of an additional 80 witnesses—for a total trial transcript of 20,667 pages, Honeywell v. Sperry Rand was at that time the longest trial in the history of the federal court system. It was preceded by six years of litigation that produced thousands of pages of under-oath depositions. 25,686 exhibits were marked by the court for plaintiff Honeywell; defendants Sperry Rand and its subsidiary Illinois Scientific Developments contributed 6,968 exhibits. The corporations on the two sides spent a combined more than $8 million pursuing the case. The resulting exhibits and testimony constitute a massive evidentiary record describing the invention and development of the electronic digital computer. Materials relevant to the case but not entered into evidence have appeared, but sparsely and infrequently, since the case's conclusion in 1973.
The computer played a major role in the prosecution of the case for plaintiff Honeywell. A computerized record of documents pertaining to the case, known as Electronic Legal Files (or ELF), allowed Honeywell attorneys to store, sort, recall, and print information on hundreds of different subjects.
The decision
More than seven months following the end of courtroom testimony, Judge Earl R. Larson's decision was published on October 19, 1973 in a document titled Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order for Judgement. Over 248 pages long, its conclusions defy summarization, but key findings include:- John W. MauchlyJohn MauchlyJohn William Mauchly was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer made in the United States.Together they started the first computer company,...
and J. Presper EckertJ. Presper EckertJohn Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and...
were the co-inventors of the ENIACENIACENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
; other contributors to the computer's design, Arthur W. BurksArthur BurksArthur Walter Burks was an American mathematician who in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. Decades later, Burks and his wife Alice Burks outlined their case for the subject matter of the...
, T. K. Sharpless, and Robert F. Shaw, who had petitioned to have their names added to the patent as inventors after it had already been issued, did not qualify for co-inventor status, nor did other contributors John H. Davis, Frank Mural, and Chuan Chu.
- Honeywell had infringed on the ENIACENIACENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
patent (Finding 23). The judge awarded no monetary damages, as he invalidated the ENIAC patent on numerous grounds in the same decision (see below).
- Sperry Rand had tried to monopolize the electronic data processing industry in violation of the Sherman Antitrust ActSherman Antitrust ActThe Sherman Antitrust Act requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by...
, on the basis of a cross-licensing agreement between Sperry Rand and IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
signed on August 21, 1956, but that only IBM had in fact succeeded in creating such a monopoly (Finding 15). The judge awarded no monetary damages despite these findings of conspiracy.
- The ENIAC patent was unenforceable (not invalid) on the grounds of unnecessary and unreasonable delay before the U.S. Patent Office (Finding 11). The judge ruled that undue delay in the patent's filing, which would have rendered the patent invalid, had not been proven.
- The ENIAC patent was unenforceable (not invalid) on the grounds of certain derelictions—including suppressing documents, withholding information, securing misleading affidavits, reversing legal positions in response to new evidence, blocking efforts of competitors to secure documents from the government, and proceeding with patent applications despite warnings of infirmities—on the U.S. Patent Office (Finding 13). The judge ruled that willful and intentional fraud on the U.S. Patent Office in filing the patent, which would have rendered the patent invalid, had not been proven. While the patent was rendered invalid on other grounds (see below), no finding of fraud on the Patent Office was significant, as the converse would have been a criminal offense and might have meant criminal prosecution for the patent filers.
- The ENIAC patent was invalid on the basis of the amount of time the inventors had permitted to elapse before filing the patent following its disclosure in public use (Finding 1). Dedication ceremonies for the ENIAC had taken place on February 15, 1946, which was prior to the critical date of June 26, 1946 (one year before the patent's filing), and any public disclosure of the device prior to the critical date rendered the patent invalid. (Problems run on the computer by figures outside the invention team took place even earlier.) The judge found the date of December 1, 1945 as the date the ENIAC was handed over to Army Ordnance and beyond which no further modifications could be considered experimental.
- The ENIAC patent was invalid on the basis of the amount of time the inventors had permitted to elapse before filing the patent following its placement on sale (Finding 2). The judge noted that the construction contract for the ENIAC placed the intended delivery date at December 31, 1945. Moreover, the first working parts of the ENIAC, consisting of two accumulators, had been shown to be operational in July 1944, and the judge ruled that these components of the eventual ENIAC were themselves an "automatic electronic digital computer" thus pushing the date before which Eckert and Mauchly would have needed to apply for the patent to July 1945.
- The ENIAC patent was invalid on the basis of the amount of time the inventors had permitted to elapse before filing the patent following the publication of its key features (Finding 7). The judge ruled that Herman Goldstine's June 30, 1945 dissemination of John von NeumannJohn von NeumannJohn von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
's First Draft of a Report on the EDVACFirst Draft of a Report on the EDVACThe First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC was an incomplete 101-page document written by John von Neumann and distributed on June 30, 1945 by Herman Goldstine, security officer on the classified ENIAC project...
, a set of incomplete notes describing the logical design of the ENIAC's successor machine the EDVACEDVACEDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer....
, which was being built simultaneously to the ENIAC's completion at the Moore School of Electrical EngineeringMoore School of Electrical EngineeringThe Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne Building...
at the University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, constituted a publication under the law and an enabling disclosure of the ENIAC. Moreover, Eckert and Mauchly had published their own official report, Automatic High Speed Computing, A Progress Report on the EDVAC on September 30, 1945, which was, again, prior to the critical date of June 26, 1946.
- Three of the 148 formal claims of the ENIAC patent were anticipated by a prior invention, the 1942 electronic multiplier by IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's Byron E. Phelps (Finding 6), for which a patent was filed in late 1945. The judge ruled out derivation, as Mauchly and Eckert could not have been aware of this prior invention; nevertheless, its patent date preceded that of the ENIAC.
- 14 of the 148 formal claims of the ENIAC patent were invalid on the basis of an unreasonably delayed amendment to the patent application (Finding 10). In May 1963, attorneys for Sperry Rand tried to amend the ENIAC patent after discovering that the definition of the word "pulse", which carried over to 14 of the patent's claims (sometimes under the equivalent usage of "impulse" or "signal"), left a lower bound on the length of an electronic pulse of 2 microseconds. Thus, machines that operated at a speed of more than 1 MHz would not be covered by the ENIAC patent. The judge ruled that the patentholders' attempts to amend the patent at such a late date was "an exigent afterthought to capture the subsequent contributions of others already in the public domain."
- The 30A package of patents (the regenerative memory system and the serial binary adders) were unenforceable.
- The ENIAC patent was invalid on the basis of derivation (Finding 3).
The publication of the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand decision coincided with the event of the Saturday Night Massacre
Saturday night massacre
The "Saturday Night Massacre" was the term given by political commentators to U.S. President Richard Nixon's executive dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20,...
, one of many events in the ongoing Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's presidency. As a result of the media's focus on Watergate, news of the decision did not attract public attention at the time.
Derivation controversy
Finding 3 was the most controversial, as it assigned the invention of the electronic digital computer by judicial fiat to John V. AtanasoffJohn Vincent Atanasoff
John Vincent Atanasoff was an American physicist and inventor.The 1973 decision of the patent suit Honeywell v. Sperry Rand named him the inventor of the first automatic electronic digital computer...
:
Charges of derivation stemmed from testimony and correspondence describing meetings between Atanasoff and Mauchly in December 1940 and June 1941, the first at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
where Atanasoff attended a talk given by Mauchly at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
on use of Mauchly's harmonic analyzer (a simple analog computer
Analog computer
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously-changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved...
) to speed the calculation of meteorological data to test for periodicities in precipitation, and the second in Ames, Iowa
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
where Mauchly had driven to visit Atanasoff for a period of five days and to examine his progress on a special-purpose computing machine whose construction Atanasoff had described for Mauchly at the prior meeting. (In the discovery process
Discovery (law)
In U.S.law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from the opposing party by means of discovery devices including requests for answers to interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for...
leading up to Honeywell v. Sperry Rand, this device came to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, or ABC; Clifford Berry
Clifford Berry
Clifford Edward Berry was an American inventor.Clifford Berry was born in Gladbrook, Iowa to Fred Gordon Berry and Grace Strohm...
had been Atanasoff's graduate student assistant in the computer development project in the basement of the physics building at Iowa State College
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
and in 1942 the two of them left Iowa State for positions in war research—Atanasoff in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and Berry in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
.)
All parties agree that Mauchly had opportunity to see the ABC, which was then in a sufficiently advanced state of construction to demonstrate many if not all of its general principles. There is disagreement about (and no definitive evidence regarding) the extent to which Mauchly understood—or indeed was interested in or capable of understanding—the circuit designs incorporated in the machine. The ABC's inventors considered their invention novel and patentable. The same trip to Philadelphia in December 1940 included a visit to the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. to conduct patent searches—so Dr. Mauchly's contention under oath that the ABC's inventors were deliberately hesitant about revealing all of the machine's details would seem to be credible. All parties agreed that Mauchly took away with him no written technical description of the ABC. However, he was familiar enough with the ABC's basic method of operation, particularly the involvement of its rotating capacitor memory drum, to have described it to J. Presper Eckert
J. Presper Eckert
John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and...
in 1943 or 1944, and to have recounted it in some detail in a 1967 deposition, over 26 years after having visited the ABC in June 1941.
Correspondence from Mauchly to Atanasoff following Mauchly's visit was touted by the plaintiff as a smoking gun
Smoking gun
The term "smoking gun" was originally, and is still primarily, a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act. In addition to this, its meaning has evolved in uses completely unrelated to criminal activity: for example, scientific evidence that is...
. Considered to be particularly damning to the Sperry Rand case were the following often-quoted excerpts:
Taken in context, this and other letters entered into evidence in Honeywell v. Sperry Rand evinced a spirit of cordiality and mutual admiration between Mauchly and Atanasoff, one that would continue into the 1940s, as Atanasoff recommended Mauchly for part-time consulting work at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory
Naval Ordnance Laboratory
The Naval Ordnance Laboratory , now disestablished, formerly located in White Oak, Maryland was the site of considerable work that had practical impact upon world technology. The White Oak site of NOL has now been taken over by the Food and Drug Administration.-History:The U.S...
in 1943 and Mauchly continued to visit Atanasoff in White Oak, Maryland
White Oak, Maryland
White Oak is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States.-Geography:As an unincorporated area, White Oak's boundaries are not officially defined...
throughout 1944, where Mauchly served as mentor, guide, and sounding board to some of those on Atanasoff's staff.
Honeywell v. Sperry Rand and the decision it culminated in emphasized the differences between the ENIAC and the ABC, some of which were:
- The ENIAC and the ABC were both electronic digital computing machines, but the ABC was a special-purpose (i.e., non-programmable) machine intended to solve systems of linear equations via a modified Gaussian eliminationGaussian eliminationIn linear algebra, Gaussian elimination is an algorithm for solving systems of linear equations. It can also be used to find the rank of a matrix, to calculate the determinant of a matrix, and to calculate the inverse of an invertible square matrix...
algorithmAlgorithmIn mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
. - The two machines were incomparable in size, scope of design, and cost.
- Both the ENIAC and ABC used triode vacuum tubes, but the ABC computed logically using a binary adder circuits, whereas the ENIAC computed enumeratively using decimal ring counters. (For proponents of Mauchly's claims to have been influenced not by the ABC but by scaling circuitsCounterIn digital logic and computing, a counter is a device which stores the number of times a particular event or process has occurred, often in relationship to a clock signal.- Electronic counters :...
used to count cosmic rays at Swarthmore CollegeSwarthmore CollegeSwarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, this is a significant distinction: if Mauchly derived any work from Atanasoff, why did he not appropriate for the ENIAC Atanasoff's add-subtract mechanism, in principle the most novel and enduring aspect of the ABC?) - Most significantly to the legacies of the two devices, the ABC was never used in any practical way for the computational task for which it was constructed, owing in part to its need to write and read interim results to paper cards using an ill-conceived input-output system too error-prone for solving large systems of equations. The ENIAC, conversely, lived a useful service life spanning almost a decade, and was used for computational jobs in numerous scientific fields. Through its successor machine the EDVACEDVACEDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer....
and the principles disseminated at the Moore School LecturesMoore School LecturesTheory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers was a course in the construction of electronic digital computers held at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering between July 8, 1946 and August 30, 1946, and was the first time any computer topics had...
, the ENIACENIACENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
influenced all future computing machines. The ABC was dismantled (with only a few of its basic components of its memory and arithmetic unit salvaged) without having been patented, published, or publicly demonstrated or described; thus it influenced no other computing machines, except insofar as such influence was transmitted through John Mauchly's exposure to the device (but again, derivation by Mauchly of any concept in the ABC is still a subject of controversy).
Following the ruling, some writers perceived recognition of Atanasoff for his title as "father of the computer" was slow in coming, and wrote books of their own. These included Pulitzer Prize-winning Iowan reporter Clark R. Mollenhoff
Clark R. Mollenhoff
Clark R. Mollenhoff was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, lawyer, and columnist for The Des Moines Register.-Life and career:...
and wife-and-husband team Alice Burks
Alice Burks
Alice Rowe Burks is an American author of children's books and books about the history of electronic computers.Born Alice Rowe, she began her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College on a competitive mathematics scholarship and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she...
and Arthur Burks
Arthur Burks
Arthur Walter Burks was an American mathematician who in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. Decades later, Burks and his wife Alice Burks outlined their case for the subject matter of the...
. (Arthur had been on the ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
's engineering staff and had requested to be added as a co-inventor following the issuance of the ENIAC patent; Alice Burks had been a computer
Human computer
The term "computer", in use from the mid 17th century, meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available....
at the Moore School
Moore School of Electrical Engineering
The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne Building...
.)
Since the time of the ruling, the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing is a quarterly journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. It contains peer-reviewed articles and other contributions on the history of computing, computer science and computer hardware by computer scientists and historians...
has served as the principal battleground for articles debating the derivation controversy. Therein John Mauchly's widow Kay
Kathleen Antonelli
Kathleen "Kay" McNulty Mauchly Antonelli was one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.-Early life and education:...
published her retort to the first Burks article following her husband's 1980 death. An article by Calvin Mooers
Calvin Mooers
Calvin Northrup Mooers , was an American computer scientist known for his work in information retrieval and for the programming language TRAC....
, a former employee of Atanasoff's at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory
Naval Ordnance Laboratory
The Naval Ordnance Laboratory , now disestablished, formerly located in White Oak, Maryland was the site of considerable work that had practical impact upon world technology. The White Oak site of NOL has now been taken over by the Food and Drug Administration.-History:The U.S...
, was published posthumously; in it, he questioned Atanasoff's commitment to and capacity for development of computing machines even when provided with ample financial resources.
External links
- A web site and blog devoted to all aspects of ENIAC
- "The ENIAC Patent" by Charles E. McTiernan, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1998.
- Honeywell, Inc., Honeywell v. Sperry Rand Records, 1925-1973 at Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota. This collection contains pretrial depositions, plaintiff exhibits, deposition exhibits, trial testimony, trial exhibits, the final opinion and judgment, and indexes from the 1971 Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand suit. The trial featured extensive testimony by many early computer designers and engineers detailing the efforts in the United States to build the first digital computers. The trial exhibits include early research reports and notebooks, pictures, and descriptions of early computing machines and programs, and films on the ENIAC. Honeywell, Inc. donated most of the materials in the collection and all of the indexes. A copy of the final judgment was donated by Judge Earl Larson. - 140 page Oral history interview by Nancy Stern, 23 January 1980 with J. Presper EckertJ. Presper EckertJohn Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and...
, Kathleen Mauchly, William Cleaver, and James McNulty, Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota. Interviewees dispute the court's finding in favor of John V. Atanasoff's contribution. - The Papers of Henry L. Hanson Special Collections Department, Iowa State University.