On June 8, 1887, Herman Hollerith filed a patent for a punch card machine. It was a key moment that led to the computer age, and the launching of International Business Machines, or IBM.
In The American Patriot’s Almanac by William J. Bennett and John T.E. Cribb, it’s noted that Hollerith was a former Census Bureau employee, and that his “novel sorting device” was part of an “apparatus for compiling statistics,” with punch cards allowing for the quick tabulation of statistics. Before Hollerith’s invention, it took the Census Bureau “eight years to sort through information collected in its once-a-decade census.” Afterwards, it took “just six weeks.”
From there, it was on to the UNIVAC I, and personal computers. It’s another example of the patent system – the protection of intellectual property – playing a key role in the advancement of technology.
Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
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