"IBM is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and with it comes a whole host of other notable milestones. One such milestone is today, which marks the 100th anniversary of IBM's first patent.

"IBM's first patent was U.S. patent #998,631 and was filed on October 11, 1907 and became a granted patent on July 25th 1911. The patent is for a 'perforating machine', essentially a punch card system used for tabulation. It's an innovation that has a long history of successors all the way up to modern storage age. While the patent system in the U.S. is currently the subject of debate, it is also a system that has worked well for IBM over the last 100 years."