In 1976, inventor Edwin Land (1909–1991) told Newsweek, “The only thing that keeps us alive is our brilliance. The only thing protecting our brilliance is our patents.” This particular “Landism” provides a convenient summary of this new book by entertainment lawyer Ronald Fierstein. Today, Fierstein represents musicians and Broadway producers like his brother Harvey. However, in the 1980s, Fierstein was a cub patent attorney at Fish & Neave, on the team representing Land and Polaroid in its epic infringement lawsuit against Eastman Kodak. Thus, A Triumph of Genius is a combination biography-memoir-legal history written from Fierstein's insider vantage point. His account draws on his own memories and an extensive source base, including the Polaroid v. Kodak court records, Fierstein's Polaroid client files, and contemporary news coverage. Unlike Victor McElheny, author of the earlier Land biography Insisting on the Impossible (1998), Fierstein could also consult the Polaroid corporate archive, deposited at Harvard's Baker Library in 2006.

Land was a prodigy and his childhood fascination with kaleidoscopes and stereopticons led to a deeper exploration of optics. After one semester at Harvard, Land dropped out and devoted himself to solving the problem of excessive headlight glare, which caused deadly accidents. In 1928, at age nineteen, Land invented the first practical synthetic polarizer, a thin plastic sheet lined with miniature crystals that could reduce glare. Land returned to Harvard and, with his physics lab instructor George Wheelwright III, formed the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories in 1932 to commercialize the polarizer. Land could never convince automakers to adopt his invention, but on the strength of supply contracts with Kodak (polarized camera lenses) and American Optical (sunglasses), Land and Wheelwright attracted investors and founded the Polaroid Corporation in 1937. Polaroid, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, grew rapidly during World War II by making “the best damn goggles in the world” for gunners and pilots. Meanwhile, Land became a technical advisor to seven presidents; his “Land Panel” oversaw construction of the U-2 spy plane and its powerful cameras.

Land, of course, is best known for inventing the Polaroid camera. In December 1943, Land snapped photographs of his three-year-old daughter; she asked, “Why can't I see these pictures now?” At the time, film had to be dropped at a pharmacy, shipped to an off-site darkroom, and developed in a multistep chemical process requiring several days. Land knew that Polaroid could not survive long-term on military sales of sheet polarizers; it needed a new product, and his daughter's challenge provided the inspiration. As the war still raged, Land and his assistants began secret experiments, eventually inventing Polaroid's patented “pod”: a small packet that released photographic chemicals when a “sandwich” of positive and negative film passed through mechanical rollers.

Land made the first public demonstration of “one-step photography” at the Optical Society of America's winter conference in February 1947. Land took a photograph of the society's president with the prototype camera. He then turned the crank, waited a few seconds, peeled away the finished print, and showed it to the astonished audience. After years of secret experiments, Land now relished his role as a master showman; he took instant photos of the assembled press photographers and said, “Now, let me see your work.” After two more years of development, Polaroid's Model 95 went on sale in November 1948, just in time for Christmas. Photography retailers were reluctant to carry the Polaroid camera—was it merely an expensive gadget? Instead, Polaroid offered its cameras through Boston's Jordan Marsh department stores, and they sold out on the first day.

After years of supplying polarizer sheets for Kodak's lenses, Polaroid had arranged for Kodak to supply the film negatives and chemicals for its Model 95. The firms enjoyed a mutually profitable partnership, and Polaroid eventually became one of Kodak's biggest customers. However, as Polaroid steadily eroded Kodak's market share, the relationship soured. In 1968, Land showed Kodak executives a prototype of the SX-70 camera, which made one-step photography even simpler. For the first time, the print emerged with no hand cranking, no timing, and no peeling; after clicking the shot, a motor advanced the film, and it developed magically before the user's eyes. Polaroid again asked Kodak to supply the special film and chemicals. However, in exchange, Kodak now demanded licenses on Polaroid's instant photography patents, essentially allowing Kodak to enter the market. Polaroid refused and was forced to build new manufacturing facilities to produce every element of its film.

After Polaroid introduced the SX-70 in 1972, Kodak resolved to invent its own instant camera. Land's original camera patents had expired, but Polaroid had continuously patented the firm's incremental technical improvements. After studying Polaroid's patent portfolio, Kodak's attorneys advised that several of Polaroid's improvement patents were mere adaptations and thus potentially invalid, especially given the courts’ history of antipatent decisions. Since the 1950s, the courts had invalidated several patents in antitrust cases where improvement patents had been used to create technical monopolies. Emboldened, Kodak managers issued an internal memo directing its engineers to pursue instant photography and “to not be constrained by what an individual feels is a potential patent infringement.” During the subsequent trial, this memo became the proverbial smoking gun.

Kodak introduced its own instant camera in 1976, and Polaroid immediately sued for infringement in Boston's federal district court. Polaroid v. Kodak dragged on for fifteen years, including the initial liability trial, appeal, and denial of certiorari at the Supreme Court and a separate damages trial. Polaroid established the validity—and Kodak's infringement—of seven of ten patents, and in September 1986 Judge Rya Zobel granted a permanent injunction. Kodak was forced to remove its instant cameras from stores and offered exchanges and rebates to millions of customers. Kodak also reportedly fired eight hundred workers and shuttered its instant camera operations at a cost of $200 million. When the damages trial was finally settled in 1991, Kodak owed Polaroid approximately $900 million, which at that time was the largest figure ever awarded in an infringement case. Fierstein concludes that Polaroid's vindication marked the return of a pro-patent stance among the federal courts. An epilogue recounts Land's final years and notes a final irony: cheap Japanese cameras, one-hour photo developers, and digital cameras would soon render both Polaroid and Kodak obsolete.

As a Polaroid insider, Fierstein could easily have written a one-sided account. However, he is balanced in characterizing the brilliant but mercurial Edwin Land and objective in presenting Kodak's point of view. Readers will enjoy Fierstein's personal observations of the key players, but might struggle at times with his long, technical descriptions of photographic chemistry. At 630 pages, the book is a bit long, but it is well worth the intellectual investment.