On December 24, 1912, U.S. Patent No. 1,048,056 issued to Irving Fisher on an Index or File:

Irving Fisher was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. Fisher was one of the first popularly known economists, but his reputation during his lifetime was irreparably harmed by his public statement, just nine days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, that the stock market had reached “a permanently high plateau”