Henry F. Phillips
Henry F. Phillips (1890 - 1958) was a businessman from Portland, Oregon and inventor of the Phillips-head screw and screwdriver. His inventions built on an earlier concept credited to the inventor J. P. Thompson.
The importance of the crosshead screw design is its self-centering properties, useful on auomated production lines that utilise powered screwdrivers. Phillips' major contribution was in driving the crosshead concept forwards to a point where it was adopted by screwmakers and automobile companies.
Although he received patents for the design in 1936 (US Patent #2,046,343, US Patents #2,046,837 to 2,046,840), it was widely copied so that by 1949 Phillips lost his patent.
The American Screw Company was responsible for devising a means of manufacturing the screw, and successfully patented and licensed their method; other screw makers of the 1930s dismissed the Phillips concept since it calls for a relatively complex recessed socket shape in the head of the screw - as distinct from the simple milled slot of a flathead screw.
The Phillips Screw Company and the American Screw Company went on to devise the
