Gurtej Sandhu

Total U.S. Patents: 674

Age: 47

Leonard Forbes

Total U.S. Patents: 671

Age: 67

Warren Farnworth

Total U.S. Patents: 635

Age: 53

Salman Akram

Total U.S. Patents: 612

Age: 40

Field: Memory and Imaging Chips

Location: Boise, Idaho

Backstory: Micron Technologies is an underdog in the ultracutthroat chip industry. Researchers there push one another and work in teams; that’s why many Micron patents bear two or more names. Company attorneys assist engineers in identifying patentable ideas. "It's an interdisciplinary brainstorming type of situation," says Sandhu.

Shared Mentor: FARNWORTH: "Alan Wood. In meetings, he'd make sure there was no such thing as a stupid idea….  Micron used to give us individual plaques for each patent. After about 20 of those, they switched to a bigger plaque with brass pieces for each patent."

Aphorism: SANDHU: "By definition, invention is the opposite of conventional thinking."

Mark Gardner

Total U.S. Patents: 515

Age: 52

Field: Computer chips, consumer electronics, energy

Location: Cedar Creek, Texas

Backstory: Earned a master’s in physics from the University of Maryland and planned to get his Ph.D. but instead took a job with Texas Instruments in 1980, because "I was so sick of being broke." A year later, Advanced Micro Devices recruited him.

Why He Left A.M.D.: "I thought it would be much better owning my inventions than giving them to the corporation."

Best Invention: Developments with high-K gate dielectric, which makes it possible to manufacture computer chips that are smaller and use less power.

Hobby: "I like caves. I own a couple in Missouri."

What's Next: Started his own company, Stellar Devices, to invent consumer electronics and other products. "After a year [of retirement], I got bored."

George Spector, who is apparently not an inventor at all. For decades, he ran a New York business that helped small-time inventors obtain patents for novelty innovations such as a motorized pot-washing tool. Spector then added his name to those patents, ultimately netting 722.

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