The Secret History Of The PDA?

Judie Lipsett over at Gear Diary sent me an email about this fellow named Judah Klausner who has been engaged in a variety of lawsuits against several different companies defending patents he allegedly owns.

Well, she piqued my curiosity with this link that contained this bit:

Klausner, inventor of the standard Electronic Organizer/PDA, including the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot

I mean, what? Who is this guy? Why haven’t I heard of him before? And what’s this about him inventing the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot?!

Well, it turns out this Klausner guy actually had something akin to an electronic organizer before anyone else!

Apple challenger Klausner: Real inventor, not a troll!

Klausner and Hotto licensed their design to Toshiba, but were turned down by General Instruments and Hewlett-Packard. Apple had its chance, too! Hotto recalled meeting Steve Jobs at the Trenton (N.J.) Computer Festival, but said that Jobs only wanted to talk about the Apple II and wouldn’t listen to anything else. If things turned out different, Apple could have had a PDA a dozen years before the Newton was even a concept, and the companies might be allies today instead of courtroom foes.

Yeah, it’s nothing more than electronic retrieval of contacts — but he managed to get a real product out first!

These are the details of the product.

As for his connection to the Sharp Wizard and Palm Pilot, that’s stretching a point to infinity, I think. That’s like saying the guy who invented the alphabet also wrote everything that others did while using “his” letters.

As for the rest, I leave the battles to the lawyers. Let them get the ulcers. That’s what they’re paid to do.

Explore posts in the same categories: Tech - Apple, Tech - Other, Tech - Palm