This website presents the court findings in the landmark 1973 federal court case Honeywell v. Sperry Rand. The result was that the patent for the ENIAC was invalid "and the invention claimed in ENIAC was derived from Atanasoff." The court ruled that Iowa State College professor Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff, with the assistance of graduate student Clifford Berry, invented the first electronic digital computer.

Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff, inventor of the first electronic digital computer. Click for enlargement

Clifford Berry, standing at the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC). Click for enlargement.

In this Website

• Table of Contents
  
• Introduction
  
• Public Use
  
• On Sale
  
• Atanasoff
  
• Inventors
  
• Claims Not Anticipated
  
• Claims Anticipated
  
• The First Draft Report
  
• The AMP Report and Burks Article
  
• Description
  
• Pulse
  
• Delay
  
• Validity
  
• Fraud on Patent Office
  
• 25 Other Patents and Patent Applications
  
• SR — IBM August 21, 1956 Agreement
  
• SR — IBM Settlement of Interferences
  
• 1961 Agreement and SR and BTL
  
• 1965 Agreement of SR and IBM
  
• Discriminatory Licensing
  
• Pending Application Royalties
  
• Section 7 of the Clayton Act
  
• Statute of Limitations
  
• Infringement of ENIAC
  
• Damages
  
• Declaratory and Injunctive Relief
  
• Order for Judgment
  
• Table of Authorities
  

Links

• Reconstruction of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)
• Guide to the ENIAC Trial Exhibits
• The ENIAC
• John Vincent Atanasoff — The Inventor of the First Electronic Digital Computing [pdf]
• John Atanasoff: The man who invented the computer
• The John Vincent Atanasoff Archive, Iowa State University
• John Vincent Atanasoff by Hien Chris Do