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Loss of a Pioneer:
Dr. Robert Adler
Inventor of the
Remote Control Dies at the Age of 93
Back in the old, old days, after dinosaurs but before the Internet, television was the “hot” technology—not 500 channel, 68 inch plasma screen HD--just plain TV, Black & White, with a screen the shape and size of a small ship’s round window, signals captured by rabbit ears antennas that had to be aligned just so, with only a few channels available only limited periods of the day. In those days, it was not uncommon to be awoke at midnight, having fallen asleep during one program or another, to see a test pattern on the TV screen with its attendant 60-cycle hum, because no broadcasts were available, nor thought necessary, after certain “proper” hours.
One of the many privations of those primitive times was the need to actually arise from the easy chair, amble over to the TV, bend over, grab the channel selector, and with a twisting motion turn the knob to click to another of the then available two or three channels. This burden made it impossible to truly become one with the chair or couch.
But, technology was advancing, and about to rescue us from yet another need to engage in physical motion. Zenith was one of the electronics and TV pioneering companies. And one of its “star” inventors was Dr. Robert Adler. As the below story explains, Dr. Adler was a prolific inventor, with 180 patents. He won many awards including an Emmy Award, for engineering. But he is probably best known as the inventor a the wireless remote control that changed TV history—the 1956 Zenith Space Command. This device, and its successors, certainly transformed the living room experience, especially for men who seem to seem to have a compulsion to use the remote not to see what’s on, but to see what else is on, often to the annoyance of their companions, and their family physicians concerned about the sedentary lifestyle.
Patents are grants by the US (and, in separate actions, by essentially every other country in the world) to the inventor to bar others from making, using, or selling what is covered by the allowed claims in the patent for a fixed period of time. Back in 1956, that time period was 17 years from the date of issuance of the patent. From the time of filing the patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), it often takes about two to three years until a patent is finally granted, although it can happen somewhat faster, and it can certainly take longer. Also, it is not a sure thing that an inventor’s patent application will even be allowed. For an invention to be granted a patent it has to meet, generally speaking, a three-fold test: it must be new, useful, and non-obvious. (There is useful information of the USPTO website about the patent criteria, and one should always consider getting the advice of a patent attorney, who is a lawyer who has been specially educated in patent matters and licensed to work on behalf of clients in helping them get patents).
Today, the time period of patents is 20 years from the date of the original filing of the application. So if the patent takes three years to issue, it would then have 17 years of remaining “life.” After a patent expires, anyone can use all the teachings of such patent and practice all the claims without owing the inventor anything. The expired patent becomes part of the public domain. So in 2007, with just certain exceptions, you and I can use anything and everything that was filed for a patent prior to 1987.
Because Dr. Adler did his inventing for a company, Zenith, the company was the “assignee” (owner) of Dr. Adler’s inventions. This is the normal situation when a person makes inventions as an employee, because that’s what he was hired to do. Had Dr. Adler worked on these inventions by himself, and not as an employee, he would have been both the inventor and “assignee.”
Having a patent enables its assignee/owner to exclude others from making a competing product (within the scope of the patent claims). The patent owner could also, or instead, license the rights to use the patent to one other company in exclusive license (meaning only that one other company could make the product covered by the patent) or to multiple other companies in non-exclusive licenses. Companies getting such licenses then pay the patent owner in some combination of upfront cash payments, or royalties that are related to the amount of sales resulting by such licensed products, or both upfront payments and royalties.
Dr. Adler had a full, rich life. He lived into his 90s, and died in a nursing home in Boise, Idaho. He retired from Zenith in 1982, and spent many of his remaining 25 years consulting, writing, and hiking and skiing in his beloved Rocky Mountains.
Not all of us are capable of the feats of a Dr. Adler. But the human inventive spirit is part of all of us. Is there an invention in you? What problem could you solve? For some the next frontier may be to change TV channels by just focusing your eyes on a number, eliminating the need to even move one’s thumb; for others it may be something that is fun enough to get us to turn off the TV, no doubt by using the remote, get off the couch and do something, maybe like Dr. Adler did.
Article by Dr. Richard Razgaitis
Links Referenced in the Article:
www.uspto.gov
About Zenith, from their website.
Robert Adler, 1913-2007
TV Remote Control Co-Inventor
Best known as co-inventor of the wireless remote control for television, Dr. Robert Adler was responsible for a large number of significant scientific contributions to the electronics industry, including landmark inventions in the field of consumer products and in sophisticated specialized communications equipment.
Dr. Adler died of heart failure on Feb. 15 in Boise, Idaho. He was 93.
A prolific inventor with a seemingly never-ending thirst for knowledge, his pioneering developments spanned from the Golden Age of Television into the High-Definition Era, earning him more than 180 U.S. patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch-screen technology, on Feb. 1.
Dr. Adler’s six-decade career with Zenith Electronics Corporation began in 1941 when he joined Zenith’s research division after receiving his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Vienna in 1937. He was named associate director in 1952, vice president in 1959, and vice president and director of research in 1963. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served Zenith as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics.
“Bob Adler was an unparalleled technical contributor, leader, adviser and teacher,” said Jerry K. Pearlman, retired Zenith chairman and CEO, who knew Dr. Adler for 35 years. “His gifts and passions were many, his mentoring matchless and his ego totally nonexistent.”
In the consumer electronics field, Dr. Adler has been widely recognized as the co-inventor (with fellow Zenith engineer Eugene Polley) of the wireless TV remote. Dr. Adler’s “Space Command” ultrasonic remote control for TV sets was introduced by Zenith in 1956. He received the 1958 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award of the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE) for his “original work on ultrasonic remote controls” for television.
Among Dr. Adler’s earlier work was the gated-beam tube which, at the time of its introduction, represented an entirely new concept in the field of vacuum tubes. The use of this tube greatly simplified the sound system in television receivers, markedly improving reception by screening out certain types of sound interference while lowering the cost of the sound channel.
Dr. Adler also was instrumental in originating and developing a synchronizing circuit which permitted demonstrably greater stability in fringe areas of the television reception. This invention was in wide use for many years and its principles are still employed today.
The electron beam parametric amplifier, developed in 1958 by Dr. Adler jointly with Glen Wade, then of Stanford University, was at the time the most sensitive practical amplifier for ultra high frequency (UHF) signals. It was used by radio astronomers in the United States and abroad, and by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile detection.
Dr. Adler’s original work in the field of acousto-optical interaction was instrumental in the 1966 public demonstration, by a team of Zenith engineers, of an experimental television display using ultrasonic deflection and modulation of a laser beam to produce a wall-size TV picture without a cathode ray tube.
During World War II, Dr. Adler worked on high-frequency magnetostrictive oscillators for use in Armed Forces communications equipment. His early work on electromechanical filters paved the way for the development of the highly compact filters widely used in aircraft receivers after the war. In the mid-60s, he suggested the use of surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in intermediate frequency filters for color televisions sets, a technology that has since become universal, not only in television but as an essential building block of cellular telephone handsets.
Dr. Adler also pioneered the use of SAW technology for touch screens. Touch screens employing principles he originated are now in widespread use in airport kiosks and in museums such as the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the San Jose (Calif.) Technology Museum, among others. Since the early 1990s, as a consultant to Elo TouchSystems, Dr. Adler actively contributed to the commercialization and further innovation of his SAW touch screen invention.
In 1951, Dr. Adler became a Fellow of the IEEE, a professional honor which is conferred by the Institute’s board of directors solely on the basis of “eminence and distinguished service.” He was cited for his “developments of transmission and detection devices for frequency-modulated signals and of electromechanical filter systems.”
Dr. Adler received the 1967 Inventor-of-the-Year Award from George Washington University’s Patent, Trademark and Copyright Research Institute for his inventions in the field of electronic products, devices and systems used in aircraft communications, radar, TV receivers and FM broadcasting.
He received the Consumer Electronics Outstanding Achievement Award in 1970 from the IEEE. This award is made annually to an engineer who has contributed significantly toward the advancement of consumer electronics through engineering achievements.
Dr. Adler also received the IEEE 1974 Outstanding Technical Paper Award for his report on “An Optical Video Disc Player,” representing early work in what was to become the digital video disc or DVD. His other IEEE awards include the Edison Medal in 1980 and the Sonics and Ultrasonics Achievement Award in 1981. The Edison Medal is the principal annual award of the IEEE and is presented for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering, or the electrical arts.
Together with Polley, he was honored in 1997 by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with an Emmy award for Zenith’s introduction of the first wireless TV remote controls 50 years ago. He was a charter inductee in the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame in 2000. Dr. Adler was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Born in Vienna, Austria on Dec. 4, 1913, Dr. Adler emigrated to the United States, settling in the Chicago area in 1941, when he joined Zenith. He lived on Chicago’s North Shore for six decades, more than 50 years in Northfield, Ill., and in Northbrook, Ill., since 1998.
A lover of the arts, Dr. Adler was active in the Chicago cultural community for decades, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Masters of Baroque, and community theater. A world traveler for both business and pleasure, he was fluent in German, English and French. He was an active participant in a Chicago-area French Club for 35 years.
He was as passionate about hiking and skiing as he was about science and the arts. He was an avid downhill skier until age 89, and was still hiking in the past year.
A memorial service is being planned for the Chicago area this spring. He is survived by his wife Ingrid (nee Koch) Adler.
CONTACT: John Taylor, Zenith, 847-941-8181
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