Jay Sorensen

Jay Sorensen is an American inventor, real estate broker, and entrepreneur best known for inventing the coffee cup sleeve in 1991, and founding Java Jacket, a company manufacturing coffee cup sleeves, in 1993.

Previous work Sorensen managed a "family business" gas station in Portland, Oregon until Shell Oil ceased operations there. He then worked in real estate, but by his own account "wasn't very good at it".

Inventing the coffee cup sleeve Sorensen had the idea first in 1989, when he was taking his daughter to school and burnt his fingers due to his drive-thru restaurant coffee, dropping the full 12 ounces into his lap. He later invented it in 1991,

Today, Java Jacket sells over one billion coffee cup sleeves a year.

A patent war began between Java Jacket and Starbucks; Sorensen called the Starbucks version "a direct infringement of ours" and filed a cease-and-desist order. Designing around Sorensen's patents, Starbucks was eventually able to create the Coffee Clutch, a product like the Java Jacket.