Fonar Corp. v. General Electric Co.
"Fonar" was a dispute between medical device manufacturer Fonar Corporation and General Electric over Fonar's patent on MRI technology. Fonar's founder, Raymond Damadian, was issued U.S. Patent 3,789,832 (priority date 1972-03-17) for an "apparatus and method for detecting cancer in tissue" using the magnetic resonance of atoms. Damadian's patent was the first patent on an MRI machine issued in the United States. Also at issue was a later patent, U.S. Patent 4,871,966 issued in 1989, covering a method for obtaining MRI images of multiple planes at different orientations in a single scan. GE is a major manufacturer of MRI scanners, and Fonar sued GE for infringing these patents by producing its scanners as well as inducing others to infringe.
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
X-ray machine – The X-ray machine was an invention which had its public debut at the 1904 World's Fair. X-rays were first discovered in November 1895 by a German scientist, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who at the time was studying the phenomena accompanying the passage of an electric current through a gas of extremely low pressure. After Rontgen's discovery, he took an x-ray of his wife's hand, showing the bones and her fingers along with her wedding ring, and sent it to several of his scientist colleagues. One of the scientists that learned of the discovery was Thomas Edison and he soon began to experiment with his own x-ray machine with his assistant Clarence Dally. In 1901, Dally brought a test version of the x-ray machine to the 1901 World's Fair, but failed to test the machine when President McKinley was assassinated. For the 1904 World's Fair, the x-ray machine was perfected and successfully shown to the public. X-rays are now commonplace in hospitals and airports.