Wealth of Ideas, February 2012

Steve Jobs, the late CEO of Apple, pioneer of personal computing and legendary innovator who died last fall of complications from pancreatic cancer, is remembered for so much – most recently, his work with the iPhone and iPad. But there’s a lot more to Jobs’ legacy of innovation than meets the eye: He was a named inventor on over 300 design and utility patents.

This month, when Jobs would have turned 57, we take a look at his career and some of his memorable achievements and lesser-known career highlights.

Introducing the Apple

Steve Jobs started the Apple Computer Company in 1976 with co-inventor Steve Wozniak. To raise the $1,300 necessary to start the company and build their first computers, each had to sell a prized possession: Jobs parted with his Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak sold his programmable HP calculator. In 1976 they introduced the Apple I, the first single-board computer with ROM built in.

In 1977 the company rolled out the Apple II, which came with color graphics and a plastic case. The company went public in 1980, and its founders became multi-millionaires.

When IBM, realizing the potential of personal computers (each person having a computer of his or her own in place of the large mainframe enterprise computers that dominated corporate America at the time) introduced its “PC” in 1981, Apple ran ads in major newspapers thanking IBM for legitimizing the concept.

In 1984, Apple created a now-classic TV ad based on the George Orwell classic “1984” and ran the ad just once during the Superbowl, setting a trend for the advertising industry that continues today.

NeXT and Pixar

Jobs continued working at Apple, but realized that he needed to focus on product development – not running the business on a day-to-day basis – so he brought in a CEO. But in 1989, he lost a power struggle with Apple’s President and CEO, John Sculley – the man Jobs had hired – so he left Apple and founded a company he hoped would compete with it: NeXT.

Though it didn’t offer as much competition to Apple as Jobs had hoped, NeXT did introduce object-oriented programming, which helped streamline software development. Meanwhile, in 1986, Jobs had purchased The Graphics Group from George Lucas for $10 million. Renaming the company Pixar Studios, Jobs turned it into a Hollywood powerhouse over the next decade, and the company continues to churn out hit after hit movie.

Back to Apple

Jobs sold NeXT to Apple in 1997 and returned to his original company as chairman and CEO, improving its products and services and revitalizing a company that many had written off. Steven Jobs’ greatest gift was that he could instinctively determine what would appeal to the American consumer. Apple had no Market Research Department and spent no funds on focus groups or other types of consumer research. Jobs just knew what consumers would like.

Jobs’ father, Paul Jobs, worked in a machine shop, and he took young Steven to work with him on a few occasions. It was watching his father and his co-workers machine parts that gave Jobs an appreciation for design. He believed that a successful product had to have not just the right technology on the inside, but also the right look and feel on the outside. And Apple’s incredibly successful products are his legacy.

Jobs had a hand in designing every aspect of not just every Apple product, but also the company’s image – right down to the packaging of the iPod and the glass staircases used in Apple stores. (You can see those design patents and some of his other patents in this New York Times interactive feature.)

In fact, Steve Jobs became such a part of Apple that periodic rumors about his failing health caused the company’s stock prices to fluctuate in the last few years of his life. On a few occasions, Apple has been the most valuable business in the world (the company’s stock price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares), jockeying back and forth for that honor with Exxon Mobil.

Steve Jobs’ Legacy

At his death, Steven Jobs was ranked by Forbes as the 110th richest man in the world. Yet he lived in a modest home, and had no servants or a chauffeur. On Halloween, Jobs answered the front door himself and handed out candy to the neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

The day before he died, the Patent Office issued U.S. Patent No. 8,032,843 for a “User interface for providing consolidation and access.” The application was filed back in 1999, and it covers the Mac OS X Dock.

Despite his intricate involvement with Apple, Jobs’ death affected Apple shares only slightly. That may be because of the four years of blueprints Jobs left for improvements on products including the Macbook, iPad, iPhone and iPod.

The litigation Apple is known for also continues. Though the company fights many legal battles on many fronts, its war against the Android operating system was particularly personal to Jobs – probably because the Android OS overtook Apple’s iOS in popularity and Jobs maintained that Android infringes Apple’s intellectual property.

Jobs described his enmity toward Android in no uncertain terms in conversations with his biographer, Walter Isaacson.

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said in Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs. “I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Will Apple succeed in carrying out Jobs’ directive to slay Android? Time will tell – and our website’s IP News page will keep reporting the major highlights of Apple’s patent wars and other IP lawsuits of interest.

But to his fans, Jobs will doubtless be admired and remembered more for his incredible innovation and creativity than for Apple’s patent litigation. Eulogizing his arch-competitor, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, said, “The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.”

And Jobs’ good friend and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak summed up even better the secret of Jobs’ success: “People sometimes have goals in life. Steve Jobs exceeded every goal he set for himself.”