His daughter Karen Jacobs said her dad died of leukemia. I

In 1968, nearly a decade after he and several other partners started the company Applied Data Research, Goetz received his patent, for data-sorting software for mainframes. It was major news in the industry.

Until then, software had not been viewed as a patentable product, one that was bundled into hulking mainframes like those made by IBM. Jacobs said her dad had patented his own software so that IBM could not copy it and put it on its machines.

Goetz later said that he knew at some point in time the patent office would recognise software. Goetz called his "sorting system" was the first software product to be sold commercially, and his success at securing a patent led him to become a vocal champion of patenting software.

Software that instructs computers on what to do, were often as worthy of patents as the machines themselves, he said.