Friedrich Koenig

1774 (Eisleben, Germany) – 1833 (Würzburg)

Koenig couldn’t interest anyone in Germany in his proposals for a high-speed printing-press, so he moved to London and patented it with the help of Nicholson (in his guise as patent agent). A revolutionary but undeveloped idea of Nicholson’s was central to the version of his machine that was successfully sold to The Times, effectively starting the age of mass media. Koenig’s patents proved hard to enforce, however, and in the face of widespread pirating of his designs he quit London and returned to Germany.

Friedrich Koenig knew…