Chester Carlson created the first successful commercial photocopier, introduced by Xerox in 1959.
Carlson, an American physicist and patent attorney, developed xerography, a dry copying process based on electrostatic charges and light-sensitive materials. He made the first successful xerographic image in 1938 and continued refining the method with support from the Battelle Memorial Institute.
The Haloid Company commercialized the technology and introduced the Xerox 914 copier in 1959. It could copy ordinary office documents onto plain paper, a major improvement over earlier processes that required special treated paper.
Carlson’s invention is often called a Xerox machine because Xerox became the dominant brand. Xerox was the company that commercialized the copier, while Carlson was the inventor of the underlying xerographic process.