 Henry F. Phillips from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at en.wikipedia.org. Henry F. Phillips from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Henry F. Phillips 1890-1958, a U.S. businessman from Portland, Oregon, has the honor of having the Phillips head screw and screwdriver named after him. The importance of the cross head screw design lies in its self-centering property, useful on automated production lines that use powered screwdrivers. Phillips' major contribution was in driving the cross head concept forward to the point where it was adopted by screw makers and automobile companies. Although he received patents for the design in 1936, U.S. Patent #2,046,343, U.S. Patents #2,046,837 to #2,046,840, it was so widely copied that by 1949 Phillips lost his patent. The American Screw Company was responsible for devising a means of manufacturing the screw, and successfully patented and licensed their method. Other screw makers of the 1930s dismissed the Phillips concept since it calls for a relatively complex recessed socket shape in the head of the screw, as distinct from the simple milled slot of a slotted type screw. The Phillips Screw Company and the American Screw Company went on to devise the Pawsadrive screw, which differs from the Phillips in that it is designed to accommodate greater torque than the Phillips. An image accompanied this article, captioned "Phillips Screw Head." The following is an info box which accompanies this article. Info box, part of the series on screw drive types. Slotted, commonly erroneously flat head. Phillips, cross head. Pawsadrive, super drive. Torques. Hex, Allen. Robertson. Tri-wing. Torx set. Spanner head. Triple square, XZN. Others, poly drive, spline drive, double hex. Many images accompanied this info box. This page was last modified on the 9th of April, 2008, at 1704. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See copyrights for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation Incorporated, a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, available at www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.