Lutnick Tells Inventors, ‘You Have a Friend’ at Commerce

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. May 8, 2025.

Howard Lutnick is the first Secretary of Commerce to ever be a patented inventor and is a named inventor on some 400 patents. He is also the only Secretary of Commerce to ever attend the annual Inventors Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which is one of the best nights of the year for the industry—akin to the Academy Awards for patented inventors.

“This is really cool,” Lutnick said on Thursday evening at the National Inventors Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held at The Anthem DC in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, DC. Lutnick would in his opening remarks quip about the coin, prominently displayed in large form on the backdrop and also seen on the podium, which shows Thomas Edison on the left and Abraham Lincoln on the right with the words, The patent system added the fuel of interest to fire of genius, surrounding the likenesses of these two icons. “I didn’t even know this was a thing,” Lutnick joked that now that he knows this exists he wants one of the coins to display.

“For the first time, the Secretary of Commerce understands the Patent Office,” Lutnick told the assembled audience of approximately 500 people. And as his remarks wound down, Lutnick received his biggest applause when he told the inventors in attendance: “You have a friend, you have a supporter, and you have an admirer.”

Among those dignitaries in attendance were Chief Judge Kimberly Moore (CAFC); Judge Raymond Chen (CAFC); Judge Kara Stoll (CAFC); Hon. Andrei Iancu, former Director of the USPTO; John Squires, the current nominee to be the next Director of the USPTO; Coke Stewart, Acting Director of the USPTO (who handed out the medals and awards); Shira Perlmutter, Registrar of Copyrights; Judge Susan Braden (CFC, ret.); Darren Tang, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); and Lisa Jorgenson, Deputy Director General of WIPO.

Acting USPTO Director Coke Morgan Stewart. May 8, 2025.

The Class of 2025

Seventeen innovation pioneers whose inventions range from cancer treatments to satellite-based imaging were honored in the 2025 class of National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductees.

• John R. Adler Jr.: CyberKnife^®
  The CyberKnife is used worldwide to noninvasively remove tumors and other abnormal lesions anywhere in a patient’s body.
• James Fujimoto, David Huang and Eric Swanson: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
  Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has had a transformative impact in ophthalmology, and is also used across a growing range of applications in the medical field and beyond.
• Barney Graham and Jason McLellan: Structure-Based Vaccine Design
  Structure-based vaccine design stabilizes and modifies surface proteins of viruses, and have been used in the development of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the first vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
• Kerrie Holley: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
  Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software architecture and programming model for large enterprises.
• Pamela Marrone: Biological Pest Control
  Marrone invented effective, environmentally responsible, nature-based products for pest management and plant health.
• Richard Schatz: Palmaz-Schatz Coronary Stent
  Since 1988, the Palmaz-Schatz coronary stent and its derivatives have been used to treat millions of patients worldwide.
• Karl Bacon and Ed Morgan: Tubular Steel Track Roller Coaster (Posthumous)
  Karl Bacon and Ed Morgan engineered the world’s first tubular steel track roller coaster, Matterhorn Bobsleds, which debuted in 1959 at Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
• Tom Blake: Surfboard Design (Posthumous)
  Tom Blake designed the first lightweight, hollow surfboards and paddleboards – some of the earliest boards to be commercially produced.
• Emil J Freireich and George Judson: Continuous-Flow Blood Separator (Posthumous)
  Continuous-flow blood cell separator devices have been vital for improving outcomes for leukemia patients and developing new approaches to treating cancer and other diseases.
• Virginia Holsinger: Dairy Product Innovations (Posthumous)
  Holsinger’s research on enzymes and digestion advanced the dairy industry, improved nutrition in American schools and created products that made milk digestible by those with lactose intolerance.
• Virginia Norwood: Multispectral Scanner (Posthumous)
  Multispectral Scanner (MSS) was the first in a series of satellite-based instruments that have been imaging our planet for decades.
• C.R. Patterson: Carriages (Posthumous)
  Charles Richard (C.R.) Patterson was an inventor and entrepreneur whose successful carriage company evolved to become the first and only Black-owned and operated automobile company in the United States.