Fred Thomas

Fred Thomas is a Distinguished Technologist in HP’s Advanced Compute and Solutions (ACS) business and an inventor with more than four decades of experience turning emerging technologies into practical products. He holds more than 100 U.S. patents spanning data storage, electro-optics, machine vision, digital pen technology, nanostructures, and thermal systems.

His technical contributions have helped enable products from Iomega’s Zip and Jaz drives to HP digital pen platforms and the HP Z Captis material digitization system, which received a CES 2025 Best of Innovation Award and a 2025 Laser Focus World Innovators Gold Award. Thomas also invented AO-DVD, an ultra-high-density optical storage concept using subwavelength nanostructures. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and physics from Bucknell University and serves there as an Innovator in Residence, sharing experience in invention, intellectual property, and emerging technology. Through his Laser Focus World writing, he explores emerging technologies and the craft of invention—how ideas are discovered, evaluated, developed, protected, and translated into products and impact. His perspective is grounded in the belief that successful invention combines technical depth with structured curiosity, persistence, and a practical understanding of value.