Transferring from Riverside Junior College, he earned his B.S. degree in Physics at the California Institute of Technology in 1930, and began working for Bell Telephone LaboratoriesNew York City as a research engineer. Finding the work dull and routine, Carlson transferred to the patent department. Laid off in 1933 during the Great Depression, he found a job as a clerk with a patent attorney near New York City's Wall Street. After about a year he got a better job at the electronics firm P. R. Mallory Company (founded by Philip Mallory, now known as Duracell), where he was promoted to head of the patent department. In 1936 he began to study law at night at New York Law School, receiving his LL.B. degree in 1939. in
His training in patent law stood him in good stead later, when he began to make progress with the basic principles of electrophotography.
He invented the process of instant copying which he called electrophotography, and which was subsequently named xerography and commercialized by the Haloid Corporation (Xerox). A hard worker, he persisted in his quest, meeting disappointment and failure for many years before finally succeeding. His invention did more than make him a millionaire many times over -- it transformed copyright law and the way people work. The changes xerography has brought about continue to reverberate, and have made possible many other inventions such as the laser printer.
He filed a patent application in April, 1939, stating, "I knew I had a very big tiger by the tail." The Xerox Corporation trademarked the name "Xerox" and has protected the name carefully.
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