The American first won the heavyweight throne in 1956 at age 21, becoming at the time the youngest heavyweight champion.
He finished his career with a record of 55-8 with one draw and 40 knockouts.
He lost the title to Sweden's Ingemar Johansson in 1959 but reclaimed the crown the following year.
"Floyd Patterson was an icon, a true gentleman and a great representative of the sport of boxing," International Boxing Hall of Fame executive director Edward Brophy said. "He will be missed."
Patterson was the middleweight champion at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, winning the gold medal bout with a first-round knockout, the first Olympic champion in the weight class to win by knockout.
Seven months after undefeated heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano retired in April of 1956, Patterson took boxing's most prized title with a fifth-round knockout of Archie Moore in Chicago.
Patterson made four successful defences of the heavyweight crown before being stopped by Johansson at Yankee Stadium in New York on June 26, 1959.
Patterson makes history
Fifteen prior heavyweight champions had lost their crown without retiring and none had regained it.
But Patterson would make history on June 20, 1960, at the Polo Grounds stadium in New York with a fifth-round knockout of the Swede.
Johansson fought Patterson for the third time in 20 months in
March of 1961 at Miami Beach and was knocked out in the sixth round by Patterson, who inflicted the only two career losses in Johansson's 28 fights.
Patterson knocked out Tom McNeeley in Toronto later in 1961 but lost the title in 1962 when Sonny Liston knocked him out in the first round at Chicago.
Patterson also suffered a first round knockout at the hands of Liston the following year in Las Vegas, Liston's last title defence before losing the crown in 1964 to Cassius Clay, igniting the legendary career of the man who changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
There would be 22 more fights in Patterson's career, including two more bids for the heavyweight throne.
Ali stopped Patterson in the 12th round in 1965 but was stripped of the crown in 1967 for refusing induction into the US Army.
Jimmy Ellis would claim the World Boxing Association heavyweight throne and fight Patterson in 1968 at Stockholm, where Ellis won a 15-round decision to keep the title.
Patterson won nine more fights before making his farewell to the ring at age 37 in 1972, being stopped in the seventh round by then-30-year-old Ali, who had been reinstated in 1970.