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INVENTORS HALL OF FAME

 

Moyroud   Higonnet     Patent No. 2,790,362 Photo Composing Machine

Louis Marius Moyroud was born on February 16, 1914 in Moirans, Isere, France. He attended engineering school from 1929 to 1936 and was graduated as an engineer from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Metiers of Cluny, France. He served in the military as a Second Lieutenant from 1936 to 1938, and First Lieutenant in 1939 and 1940. He joined the LMT Laboratories, a subsidiary in Paris of ITT, in 1941 and left in 1946 to spend all of his time on photo composition.

Moyroud was instrumental in the development of the Euorcat Series of phototypesetting machines marketed in Europe by Bobst Graphics. Working with fellow communications engineer Rene Higonnet, he developed the first practical phototypesetting machine, the Lumitype--later know as the Photon--which was first demonstrated in September, 1946 and introduced in America in 1948. The Photon was further refined under the direction of the Graphic Arts Research Foundations.

The first book to be composed by the Photon was printed in 1953, titled THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF INSECTS. Composed without the use of metal type, it might someday rank in the historical importance of printing with the first book printed from movable type, the Gutenberg Bible.

Rene Alphonse Higonnet was born on April 5, 1902 in Valence, Drome, France and died in 1983. He was the son of a teacher, educated at the Lycee de Tournon and the Electrical Engineering School of Grenoble University. He was granted a scholarship by the International Institute of Education in New York in 1922. He went to Carleton College, Minnesota for one year, and subsequently, for one term at the Harvard Engineering School, 1922-24. He was an engineer with the Materiel Telephonique, a French subsidiary of ITT, from 1924 to 1948. He became a transmission engineer and worked on long distance cables in Paris-Strasbourg, London-Brussels, and Vienna-Budapest, and was also associated with the Patent and Information Department of ITT.

In 1955, he and Moyroud were awarded the Franklin Medal by the Franklin Institute. In 1956 Higonnet was awarded the French Legion of Honor. In 1975, they were awarded the Prix Nassim Habif for the development of photocomposition, by the Societe de Ingenieurs des Arts et Metiers in France.

The above information was supplied by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., Room 1D01-Crystal Plaza 3, 2021 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202. Videotapes and printed materials are currently available. For more information, visit the Foundation's web site at http://www.invent.org

      

         

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