On November 14, 1967, Theodore H. Maiman received U.S. Patent No. 3,353,115, on a Ruby Laser System — the first functioning laser:

In April 1957 Jun-ichi Nishizawa proposed the concept of a “semiconductor optical maser.” Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow of Bell Labs began work the same year on “optical masers,” and filed a patent application in 1958. At a conference in 1959, Gordon Gould coined the term “LASER” in the paper he presented “The LASER, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” However, it was Theodore H. Maiman who operated the first functioning laser on May 16, 1960, at Hughes Research Laboratories, ahead pf Townes, Schawlow, and Gould.