2007 National Inventors Hall of Fame Winners

The National Inventors Hall of Fame (founded in 1973 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Association) announced its 2007 winners today (2/8/07). To be eligible for the honor inventors must hold a U.S. patent and their invention "must have contributed to the welfare of society and have promoted the progress of science and the useful arts."

Posthumous awards will recognize the following inventors at the awards ceremony on May 4th and 5th at the Hall's home in Akron, Ohio : Allen Breed for the automotive airbag; David Cushman and Miguel Ondetti for captopril (medical Ace inhibitor); Donald Davies for digital packet switching; William Goddard and John Lynott for magnetic disk storage; Peter Goldmark for the long playing (LP) record; Maurice Hilleman for vaccines including the MMR; Godfrey Hounsfield for the CAT scanner; Arthur Nobile for prednisone (steriod); and Otto Wichterle for the soft contact lens.

The living inventors to be inducted are: Paul Baran for digital packet switching; Emmett Chappelle for bioluminescence techniques; John Franz for Roundup® herbicide; Leroy Hood for the DNA sequencer; Paul Lauterbur for magnetic resonance imaging—MRI; Peter Mansfield also for magnetic resonance imaging—MRI; and Robert Metcalfe for the Ethernet.