Ronald Reagan as President of the United States proclaimed February 11, 1983 as National Inventors' Day, Proclamation 5013, to ..call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. In recognition of the enormous contribution inventors make to the nation and the world, the Congress, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 140 (Public Law 97 - 198), has designated February 11, the anniversary of the birth of the inventor Thomas Alva Edison who had over 1,000 patents, as National Inventors' Day.

Last year, we blogged about National Inventors' Day here on Securing Innovation, the corporate blog of IP.com.

This year, in anticipation of the 162nd anniversary of Thomas Alva Edison's birthday, your humble editor made a personal pilgrimage from Buffalo to Schenectady, a "whistle-stop" on the way to LegalTech New York, sponsored by Incisive Media, the publishers of IP Law and Business. I had hoped to meetup with General Electric's Patent Procurement Counsel, William F. ("Bill" ) Heinze, at the conference in New York but, alas, such a happy coincidence was not to be.

But there in Schenectady, under the guidance of my host, David Giacalone, who snapped this photograph of me arriving via Amtrak, I learned a lot about Thomas Alva Edison and  the early days of the General Electric Company.

Thomas Edison is heralded for his genius as an inventor. Less known is his brilliance as a business pioneer. By aligning multiple businesses to bring innovation to the marketplace, he laid the path for today's GE. Learn more about the inspiration - and the perspiration - of the man who started it all.

The Edison Papers recently announced winners of the prestigious 2009 EDISON ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Mr. David Kelley, Founder and Chairman of IDEO and Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, President of Product Development at Genentech, who will be presented with these awards April 1, 2009 at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success. - Thomas Edison