Born in New York City in 1923, Jerome Lemelson graduated from New York University in 1951 with a master's degree in aeronautical and administrative engineering . He spent the following several years working for various companies as an industrial engineer, but in 1957 Lemelson quit his job and decided to set out on his own as a full-time inventor. Out of his workshop in Metuchen, New Jersey, Lemelson began developing ideas for toys. Lemelson's first invention--a wheeled toy--was bought by the Ideal Toy Company.

Although his toy and game inventions sold well, Lemelson was far more interested in his high-tech inventions. After seeing a demonstration of a punched card-controlled lathe , he decided to begin research into the field of automation , particularly the pursuit to automate production machinery. In the next few years Lemelson developed a large number of very successful devices. These inventions included a system for machine vision , a universal robot...