Shunpei Yamazaki has 1,432 patents and is the largest patent holder in US history……..and he lives in Japan. Yes, it seems to be true: The top individual
holder of U.S. patents is based at Tokyo tech research firm
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. For decades, the popular assumption
has been that Thomas Edison is the all-time patent king with 1,093
patents. Yamazaki blows away Edison, and he is still inventing and
getting patents.

When the USPTO made that 1997 list of living prolific inventors, the No. 1 patent holder was legendary Japanese inventor, Shunpei Yamazaki. Most of his work involves computer and video screens for his Tokyo company, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. As of 1997, Yamazaki held 372 patents.

Recently, a search of the USPTO database turns up 1,432 patents bearing his name. Yamazaki’s
most recent patent, granted Nov. 22, was titled, "Reflective liquid
crystal display panel and device using same." His first patent, for a
computer chip design, was granted in 1980. Yamazaki has averaged about a patent a week for 25 years.

It’s not unusual to have a foreigner
holding so many patents. Of the top 10 living patent holders on the
1997 list, eight were from other countries. Six were Germans, and two
were Japanese.

So much for the legend of Edison. America’s
greatest inventor is apparently an obscure guy in Japan who makes stuff
most people can’t comprehend.

The only pictures I was able to find of Shunpei Yamazaki are shown here. He is listed as the president of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory and poses here showing off
a glass integrated circuit with an 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) at a product
unveiling in Tokyo. Sharp Corp, Japan’s largest maker of liquid crystal
displays, and SEL jointly developed the display with microprocessor
circuitry applied directly to the glass, enabling the screen to function
like a computer.

Another of his inventions is world’s first plastic CPU.

Lest you think he only works on circuit board designs, one of his recent patents is an "Electrochemical Method for Creating Nuclear Fusion". In his description of this invention, Yamazaki starts by summarizing what is wrong with the way Jones+(89) carries out electrolytic cold fusion. The use of atmospheric pressure reduces the probability of cold fusion; the reaction tends to occur at a localized section of the electrode from the rise in temperature at that point; poisoning of the cathode leads to side reactions and product decomposition, and the deuterium ends up in the atmosphere, so the amount used for fusion is small; says Yamazaki.

Another is a "Plasma Method for Creating Nuclear Fusion". In this patent he sets out to solve several problems with "conventional" cold fusion apparati and thereby gives us reliable cold fusion.

And still another is an "Electrode for Use in Nuclear Fusion". In this patent, as the previous patent one, he tries to provide a reliable method for creating cold fusion. Here, instead of using microwave resonance with magnetism, a high frequency electric field ("500 KHz to 500 MHz, for example 13.56 MHz") produces the plasma, which is beamed at the target.

Yamazaki was listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as
holding 3,245 patents as of May 31st of that year. Not all were U.S.
patents, but he has added to the list since then.