Xerox Scientist Registers 100th Patent Milestone

Before Xerox's Steven J Harrington had time to savour a milestone few inventors have ever reached, it was already in his rear-view mirror.

Before Xerox's Steven J Harrington had time to savour a milestone few inventors have ever reached, it was already in his rear-view mirror.

Harrington, a scientist in the Xerox Innovation Group who received three patents within days of each other last month, is the 14th Xerox scientist to be awarded 100 patents.

His 100th US patent - No.

7,092,551 - is titled 'System and method for measuring and quantising document quality'.

It is one of seven patents he filed related to the fundamental understanding of what makes images and layout appealing.

Working with scientists from Rochester Institute of Technology's Centre for Electronic Imaging Systems, Harrington, a Xerox Fellow, discovered ways to objectively judge what have been subjective issues until now, such as the properties that make documents look better or worse, easier or more difficult to understand, eye-catching or dull, said the company.

Harrington continues to invent.

He has applied for a dozen more patents, including several innovations that result in smarter documents, said Xerox.

Amongst them are methods for encoding invisible electronic information in a printed document, for internet coupon fraud deterrence and for creating and using multi-versioned documents.

Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox's chief technology officer and president of the Xerox Innovation Group, said: "Steve has the rare ability to find new ways of approaching challenges.

His inventions have ranged from digital watermarking and inkjet printer technologies to highlight colour mapping and a method for correcting colour in a compressed image.

His discoveries have enriched Xerox products and services and have influenced the state of the art in imaging." Fascinated by robots and Tinker Toys when he was a child in Portland, Oregan (USA) Harrington, 58, is said to be happiest when he is being challenged by new problems.

He said: "One of the reasons I find research at Xerox so satisfying is that I am constantly learning new stuff." Harrington is currently working in Xerox's adaptive and smart document systems laboratory, where he is investigating what can happen when electronic devices 'talk' to each other.

A scientist with wide-ranging interests, Harrington has also worked on symbolic computation, taught computer science and developed page description languages and methods for highlighting colour printing, image rendering, half toning, colour mapping and video image processing.

He joined Xerox in 1981 after two years teaching at the State University of New York.

His teaching experience inspired him to write a textbook that is described as a classic in its field, 'Computer Graphics.

A Programming Approach'.

He is also a co-author of 'Interpress: The Source Book' describing the Xerox page-description language.

He received bachelor of science degrees in physics and mathematics from Oregon State University, then master of science degrees in physics and computer science as well as a doctorate in physics from the University of Washington.

He spent two years in a post-doctoral appointment at the University of Utah.

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