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Patents that changed the world: Picture this

Patents that changed the world: Picture this

For multinationals in the information age, teleconferencing has become as vital as email, enabling managers in every part of the world to keep each other informed. But few know that the technology actually grew out of the mobile phone industry’s early foray into videophones.

The earliest videophone, PicturePhone, was developed by Bell Labs and AT&T for the consumer market in 1956, but, unfortunately, the bulky prototype only turned over one frame every two seconds. A more streamlined version emerged in 1964, featuring easier-to-use controls and improved mobility of images. This model, known as the ‘Mod-1’, was unveiled at the famous New York World’s Fair, when members of the public were invited to call the company in Disneyland, Orlando, to trial the device.

Following user feedback, Bell Labs refined the kit, launched a trial network in Pittsburgh in 1970; secured a patent for the Mod-1 (US 3,612,767), and predicted that one million units would be in use over the next decade. Unfortunately, their prediction fell wide of the mark; the phone jst couldn’t shrink quickly enough for consumers to embrace it.

Despite the product’s underperformance in the mobile phone industry, it soon became central to the world’s first teleconferencing platform: the PicturePhone Meeting Service(PMS). Confined to the business elite, PMS was used by high level US managers based abroad, who wanted to keep in touch with their homeland headquarters. Less a must-have handset for the public at large, it epitomised all that was slick and convenient in global boardrooms.

Since then, teleconferencing has blossomed, thanks in part to the rise of 24-hour media, globalised working practices and a cross-time-zone work circle. And with 67 million webcams flying off the shelves between 1998 and early 2005, it is a medium that will only continue to grow.

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