IBM Celebrates 100th Anniversary of its First Patent

“IBM is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and with it
comes a whole host of other notable milestones. One such milestone
is today, which marks the 100th anniversary of IBM’s first
patent.

“IBM’s first patent was U.S. patent #998,631 and was filed on
October 11, 1907 and became a granted patent on July 25th 1911. The
patent is for a ‘perforating machine’, essentially a punch card
system used for tabulation. It’s an innovation that has a long
history of successors all the way up to modern storage age. While
the patent system in the U.S. is currently the subject of debate,
it is also a system that has worked well for IBM over the last 100
years.”

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