While greatly diminished from its days of glory, Bell Labs still exists but with no connection to AT&T.  IEEE ComSoc NA Director and former Distinguished Lecture Tour Manager has distinguished himself through many inventive accomplishments and patent contributions throughout his career with Alcatel Lucent.  He has been honored to have received the Bell Labs Inventors Award three times as we’ve previously reported: 

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2012/08/08/profile-of-prolific-inventor-comsoc-na-director-yigang-cai 

http://www.comsoc.org/blog/ieee-comsoc-member-yigang-cai-receives-2011-bell-labs-inventors-award

Mr. Cai is truly a patent generating machine.  His latest patent is:

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PROVIDING USER EQUIPMENT WITH VOICE MESSAGES
Inventors:  Yigang Cai (Naperville, IL, US)  Xiangyang Li (Shanghai China, CN)
IPC8 Class: AH04W412FI
USPC Class: 455413
Class name: Radiotelephone system message storage or retrieval voice mail
Publication date: 2012-10-04
Patent application number: 20120252417

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120252417#ixzz28rWLJSWg

Yigang’s consistently outstanding performance, exemplary innovative potential and extraordinary contributions to a strong Alcatel Lucent patent portfolio warrant a different and higher level of recognition.  And to that end, Yigang has been selected to receive the company’s first “Distinguished Inventor” Award.   What an honor!  Heary congrats Yigang!

Author’s Note:  As a volunteer for IEEE for almost 40 years (and an IEEE member for 44 years), I’ve seldom seen such a hard working, dedicated volunteer like Yigang.  He came to U.S. from China in the 1990’s and made a whole new life for himself.  He is greatly admired by his IEEE and Alcatel-Lucent colleagues.