Coded, or correlated, magnets were developed by Correlated Magnetics Research (CMR), founded in 2008 and based in Huntsville, Alabama. The company sells the technology as Polymagnets.
CMR's history page credits co-founder and Chief Scientist Larry Fullerton. It says he set out to build a self-assembling toy to interest his grandchildren in math and science, and drew on his background in wireless communications, arranging magnets in patterns, or codes, borrowed from signal processing theory. Encoding magnets with those complex fields became the basis of the company.
The patent record grew quickly. A December 2014 CMR press release reported 121 issued patents and 58 applications on file in the US, Europe and Asia. CMR's FAQ today says it has more than 100 issued US patents with many more pending, covering the processes and equipment used to make Polymagnets as well as magnet behaviors.
Recognition followed. A Popular Mechanics article reposted on CMR's blog says the MagPrinter technology won a 2010 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, and CMR reports demonstrating the technology to President Obama at Capital Factory in Austin in May 2013.
WholeMagnetics, 2026-10-04. Polymagnet facts are taken from Correlated Magnetics Research’s public pages, listed below; vendor performance figures are CMR’s own.