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| Authored by: Tkilgore on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 07:48 PM EDT |
> The commercial light bulb was patented (and in production) > by Joseph
Swann two years before Edison filed his patent.
Edison's patent was for an *improvement* to the incandescent light bulb. The
patent itself did not assert that Edison had invented the light bulb. Not
unexpectedly, an oversimplified description prevails in our grade-school history
books.
As to some of the other new industries which have been mentioned, it seems that
patents and patent fights in court actually were a severe impediment to
progress. The list definitely includes the steam engine and the airplane and the
sewing machine.
Of course, there have been other countries where the history is looked at
differently, too, and a lot of stories to tell about such things. Not everyone
has the suitable amount of respect for the US patent system. For example, I was
in St. Petersburg, Russia for a mathematics conference this summer. The place
where I stayed was on Professor Popov Street. According to the Russians,
Professor Popov invented wireless telegraphy, sometime in the 1890s. Naturally,
they have to be wrong about that. As we all "know," everything that
was ever invented was invented in the USA -- and duly registered with the US
Patent Office. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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