Hosted by ipCG founder John Cronin, Invent Anything unpacks how raw ideas become defensible intellectual property. Each episode draws on three decades of patent strategy, invention methodology, and innovation work with inventors, operators, and Fortune 500 leadership teams.
World-changing, the cell phone revolutionized how people communicate, freed people to connect with people, not places, without the constraints of the wired network. The cell phone led to the creation and growth of new industries. April 3 is the 48th anniversary of the first call made in public on a cell phone. It happened on 6th Avenue at 52nd in New York City. That call, made by the “father of the cell phone,” Marty Cooper, whose second home for many years was in the Bay Area, called one of the “100 most important inventors in history,” by TIME magazine, has unquestionably changed all of our lives. It centers on a battle for control of how people communicate, involving government regulators, lobbyists, police, technology breakthroughs, failures, quartz, and a horse. At the center of that story is Martin Cooper, a legendary futurist. This book describes how his early life influenced the creation of the cell phone and how he persisted despite being told the idea was impractical, unmarketable and preposterous. Industry skirmishes became a political war in Washington, a struggle to prevent a monopolistic company from dominating telecommunications. The drama crests in the first-ever public call made on a handheld, portable telephone—a cell phone. Despite that, the cell phone we know today almost didn’t happen. The first working wireless phone was created after just three months of frantic effort driven by the deadline of an FCC hearing. Without the vision of visionaries and engineers at Motorola, the last 40 years of history would be different. Their story is inspiring and instructive. After a 29-year career at Motorola, Cooper became an entrepreneur, helping launch companies dedicated to accelerating cell phone adoption. The story of the cell phone has much to teach about innovation, strategy, and management. This book also relates Cooper’s vision of the future of personal communications. He postulates that the story is far from finished, that we have only achieved a small fraction of the cell phone’s potential impact. The cell phone empowers people from all walks of life. It is reshapes how children learn, how we collaborate. The cell phone is transforming medicine and healthcare, contributing to the eradication of disease, elimination of poverty, extension of life, and closely coupling human and artificial intelligence. Marty Cooper spent years working in Silicon Valley as a founder, CEO and board member. For many years, the Valley was his second home. He was a founder of ArrayComm, Inc., a San Jose company that was a world leader in smart antenna technology, now known as MIMO. A version of MIMO is crucial in making 5G cell systems work. Marty also served on the board of Energous, Inc., which markets technology for charging devices at a distance, also a San Jose company. He is on the advisory board of Cinequest, which conducts a major film event in San Jose each year. Marty has also delivered numerous keynotes at Mosconi Center in S. F. Cooper is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he is a Life Trustee. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of the Marconi Prize “for being a wireless visionary who reshaped the concept of mobile communication.” Learn more at www.martycooper.com.
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