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Hedy Lamarr: Patent
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"Any girl can be glamorous," Hedy Lamarr once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant, inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior. In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time.
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Ms. Lamarr and Mr. Antheil, who died in 1959, received little or no money for their patent. Ms. Lamarr retired to Miami, where at age 85, she reportedly lives on a modest Screen Actors Guild pension. But the two unlikely inventors are receiving belated recognition.
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In 1997, a Canadian company sought out Ms. Lamarr, then a reclusive senior living in Florida. In exchange for the original patent, the company paid Ms. Lamarr an undisclosed amount. Also that year, Lamarr had become something of a cult icon to tech enthusiasts, well aware of her invention. She's remembered by many for saying: "Films have a certain place in a certain time period. Technology is forever."
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Dave McClure of the U.S. Internet Industry Association tells an intriguing story on the patent history of spread spectrum wireless, and the link to Hedy Lamarr an actress, inventor, and amazing person. This is footage from Dave speaking at the WSTA Fall Conference in 2006.
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In the late 1950s, after Lamarr's and Antheil's patentexpired, Sylvania engineers independently developed a similarconcept. Their device, using electronic controls instead of paper rolls, became the foundation for the secure military communications used today.
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In December of 1940, the "frequency hopping" device developed by Lamarr and Antheil was submitted to the national inventors council, a semi-military inventors' association. Lamarr and Antheil went on to file for a patent application for the "Secret Communication System," June 10, 1941. The patent was granted by the United States patent office on august 11, 1942.
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