'Thomas Alva Edison', c1910s. Portrait of American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931). Edison was a prolific inventor who registered over 1000 patents, many of which were related to the development of electricity. His inventions, in collaboration with his staff, include the phonograph, ticker-tape machine, carbon granule microphone, incandescent light bulb and the Kinetoscope, which combined sound and vision and was a precursor of talking pictures.