Who invented the first digital camera and received a patent in 1978?

Steven Sasson invented the first digital camera and received a related U.S. patent in 1978.

While working as an engineer at Eastman Kodak, Sasson built a self-contained electronic camera prototype in 1975. It used a Fairchild Semiconductor charge-coupled device, or CCD, to capture an image instead of film. The prototype recorded black-and-white pictures at only 100 by 100 pixels and stored them on a cassette tape, making it primitive by modern standards but revolutionary in concept.

Kodak filed a patent application covering features of the camera in 1977, and U.S. Patent No. 4,131,919 was issued in 1978. Sasson was the principal inventor, with Lloyd also named on the patent. Thus, the quiz’s attribution to Sasson is the standard answer, even though the legal patent record includes a co-inventor.

John Logie Baird is associated with early television, Edwin Land with instant photography, and James Russell with optical-disc technology—not this pioneering digital-camera design.