please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . learn how and when to remove these template messages this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message this article relies too much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message a major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject . it may require cleanup to comply with wikipedia s content policies particularly neutral point of view . please discuss further on the talk page . may 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message learn how and when to remove this template message cognex corporation type public traded as nasdaq cgnx industry industrial automation hardware and software founded 1981 headquarters natick massachusetts united states key people dr. robert j. shillman founder chairman and chief culture officer ; robert willett president and ceo ; richard a. morin executive vp and cfo products vision systems vision sensors vision software id readers revenue 500 million usd 2014 number of employees 1 400 website www.cognex.com cognex corporation is an american manufacturer of machine vision systems software and sensors used in automated manufacturing to inspect and identify parts detect defects verify product assembly and guide assembly robots . cognex is headquartered in natick massachusetts usa . it has offices in more than 20 countries . cognex was one of the first companies citation needed to explore commercial applications for machine vision in the early 1980s . in the 1990s cognex s business grew rapidly due to the demand for machine vision tools to help automate semiconductor and electronics manufacturing . while semiconductor manufacturing remains an important market for cognex vision today the company receives a greater portion of its revenue from general manufacturing applications in areas such as pharmaceutical automotive healthcare packaging aerospace and consumer products manufacturing . the company s product portfolio includes in sight a vision system that combines a camera software and processor into one compact unit ; visionpro vision software ; checker a single purpose vision sensor used to provide high performance at certain common vision tasks such as checking for the presence or absence of parts and features ; dataman a family of fixed mount and handheld id readers used to identify and track items by reading 1d and 2d data matrix codes . history edit cognex corporation was founded in 1981 by dr. robert j. shillman a lecturer in human visual perception at the massachusetts institute of technology and two mit graduate students bill silver and marilyn matz . cognex stands for cognition experts . the company s first vision system dataman was introduced in 1982 . dataman was an optical character recognition ocr system designed to read verify and assure the quality of letters numbers and symbols printed on products and components . the company s first customer was a typewriter manufacturer that purchased dataman to read letters on typewriter keys and ensure that they were located in the correct position . in 1989 cognex went public on the nasdaq exchange for 1.38 per share within a year the stock price had tripled . 2 in 1995 cognex made the first of many acquisitions when it purchased acumen a u.s. based developer of wafer identification systems . acquisitions have played an important role in the company s growth and enabled cognex to enter new markets for machine vision such as surface inspection and vehicle vision . in 2004 the company won an intellectual property victory when a federal judge ruled in cognex s favor in a patent lawsuit brought against the estate of the inventor jerome h. lemelson who had filed dozens of submarine patents some of which purported to cover machine vision processes . the patents were held invalid . 3 4 5 6 the ruling was upheld by the court of appeals for the federal circuit . 7 cognex sold off its in vehicle product in 2007 citing concerns about profitability and intellectual property issues . 1 in 2015 cognex sold off its surface vision division and the associated range of products smartview web inspection vision gear slit inspection smart advisor process surveillance web monitoring and visionpro surface to ametek inc. for approximately 160m us . the sold division represented about 12 % of cognex in terms of revenue and number of employees . references edit http finance.yahoo.com q s cgnx . missing or empty title help cognex company history . cognex . retrieved 2 march 2011 . http www.usatoday.com tech science discoveries 2005 08 21 lemelson fraud x.htm some claim inventor lemelson a fraud adam goldman the associated press 2005 united states district court district of nevada cv s 01 701 pmp january 23 2004 http www.bloomberg.com apps news pid 10000103 & sid aomqpqs3330e & refer us . u.s. judge invalidates billion dollar scan patents bloomberg http www.nytimes.com 2004 02 02 business patents shown recent cases argued courts properly crediting inventor can be.html patents ; as shown by recent cases argued in the courts properly crediting an inventor can be murky business . new york times united states court of appeals for the federal circuit 04 1451 symbol technologies inc. et al. v. lemelson medical education & research foundation lp september 9 2005 external links edit official website coordinates 42 18 08 n 71 21 19 w 42.30213 n 71.35534 w 42.30213 ; 71.35534 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title cognex corporation & oldid 729873452 categories commercial computer vision systemscompanies based in massachusettsnatick massachusettscompanies listed on nasdaqhidden categories pages with citations lacking titlespages with citations having bare urlsarticles with a promotional tone from may 2015all articles with a promotional tonearticles lacking reliable references from may 2015all articles lacking reliable referenceswikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest from may 2015pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersall articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from october 2011coordinates not on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages fran ais edit links this page was last modified on 15 july 2016 at 04 38 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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