It’s generally accepted that Martin Cooper of Motorola developed the first handheld mobile phone in 1973. However, the first patent for a ‘pocket-size folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone’ was made in 1917 by Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt.
The Motorola phones – now referred to as zero generation mobile phones – weighed more than a kilogram, and they connected over Bell’s AMPS. Since then, mobile phones have received thousands of developments to get to where they are today. More manufacturers have entered the industry and now there’s estimated to be more than five million active mobile phone patents.