Andreas Pavel

Who is Andreas Pavel?

Andreas Pavel is a German-Brazilian inventor who is the 'father' of the portable personal stereo cassette player, better known as the Walkman.

Born in Aachen, Germany, Pavel went to São Paulo when he was 6 years old, brought by his father who went to work for the Matarazzo industries. It was in Brazil, in 1972, that he invented his device, the stereobelt. He lived in a modern house in Morumbi, and was acquainted to some important personalities of the time, as the journalist Vladimir Herzog and the poet Augusto de Campos

Over the next few years he tried to interest companies like Grundig, Philips, and Yamaha in manufacturing it. In 1977, Pavel filed a patent in Italy on the device, followed by patents in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and Japan. He moved to Milan aged 30 years.

In 1979, Sony began selling the popular Walkman, and in 1980 started legal talks with Pavel regarding a royalty fee. In 1986 Sony finally agreed to pay royalties to Pavel, but only for sales in Germany, and only for a few models, and refused to acknowledge him as the inventor of the device.

In 1989, Andreas Pavel started new proceedings, this time going through the law courts in the UK.