AmiCOUR IP Group News and Opinions

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January 14, 2010 - Public debate exploded over the award of the 2009 Nobel Prize for the discovery of charge coupled devices or "CCD" imaging technology widely used in electronic cameras. In the late 1970's RCA's Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility, then a leader in color studio camera vacuum imaging tubes, including vidicons, visticons, and light amplifiers for security and night vision applications, garnered attention by sending a cigarette sized CCD based "solid state" camera to the ocean depths. The Bell Telephone Laboratories Research facility in nearby Murray Hill, New Jersey had been the epicenter of the new technology, viewed as likely to serve a niche for small cameras facing harsh operating environments. Two Bell researchers, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, were recently named winners of the Nobel Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; however, two former colleagues, Eugene Gordon and Mike Tompsett, soon claimed that Smith and Boyle were not the main scientists behind the evolution of the CCD discovery into image capturing technology, even alleging that the two new Laureates were off in the wrong direction by wanting to apply CCD technology to memory devices. Boyle was accused of getting the credit simply because he headed the laboratory, and a patent allegedly used by the committee is said to have little to do with CCD imaging devices. The Nobel committee scientific report discussed the evolution and contribution of CCD technology, and both Laureates have received numerous previous awards crediting them with inventing CCD technology.  Read comments.