I was reading the obituary column in today's Daily Telegraph when I came across the obituary of Amos Joel, an inventor for Bell Telephone. He was 90 years old.

Newspaper obituaries for inventors aren't all that unusual, but this one actually mentioned the number of his key patent, 3663762 (didn't say it was American, but I suppose most readers would read between the lines).

His Mobile Communication System patent, applied for as long ago as 1970, was apparently key in preparing the groundwork for mobile phones / cell phones. On the right is the main drawing.

Without it, the article says, mobile phone users would not be able to keep talking in a call if they moved between the hexagonal cells of the phone network.

The patent's own summary says "A control center determines mobile station locations and enables a switching center to control dual access trunk circuitry to transfer an existing mobile station communication path from a formerly occupied cell to a new cell location.

"The switching center subsequently enables the dual access trunk to release the call connection to the formerly occupied cell."

It's good to see an inventor who made an important contribution credited in this way.

Steve Van Dulken is a world-renowned expert on inventions and how they relate to businesses. You can read more of Steve’s writing on the British Library website.

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By Steve Van Dulken  on   Nov 04,2008

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Keywords

patents    phones    mobile    Van Dulken    invention    product    communications   

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