Who Invented The Mobile Phone And When? - Martin Cooper was born December 26, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a vice president and division manager who led the Motorola team that developed the handheld mobile phone (as distinct from the car phone). On April 3, 1973, Cooper made a phone call from a prototype Dyna-Tac handheld cellular phone. It took 17 years to be fully developed and marketed to the world.