Battelle Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Commercial Office Copier

March 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the office copier – a defining moment in business and history in which Battelle played a critical role.  The technology behind the “dry powder copy” was invented by Chester Carlson, a patent attorney struggling with the difficulty and expense of making extra copies of patent specs.  In 1938, after patenting a proprietary process, Carlson began looking for a partner to help him commercialize the technology.

He was rejected by more than 20 businesses before turning to Battelle, for whom he had worked in the past as a patent attorney.  Battelle scientists saw what others missed and they agreed to develop the process and find avenues for commercialization. 

They began the process of refining the technology and in 1946, asked a small photocopy shop in New York, Haloid, to sponsor further development of the dry powder image.  The process had been coined xerography (Greek for dry writing) and it wasn’t long before Haloid changed its name to Xerox.

In 1948, the first xerographic image was produced in public and a Model A machine was launched to make lithographs.  It would be well over a decade before low-cost, convenient copiers would be available for American business offices.  In March 1960, the Xerox 914 (so named because it could copy on sheets as large as 9” x 14”) was delivered to the first customer. 

For more on this revolutionary story of technology commercialization, see the release from Battelle