Inventing the Telephone, Independently

An anonymous reader writes "There is a nice article about the history of the telephone at AmericanHeritage.com. Most of us know that Alexander Bell beat Elisha Gray to the patent office by mere hours to claim credit for the invention of the telephone, but did you know that two other inventors can also claim the invention, including Thomas Edison? Similar disputes about independent invention and patent ownership can be found regarding the television, the airplane, and the automobile. Maybe it really is true: the economic benefit of encouraging patents is like that of encouraging window breaking."

Comments

and like Calculus

[geoffrobinson]

Duplicating good ideas should be expected. Something like calculus shouldn't be trademarked, etc.

But if you place the threshhold high enough, patents (esp. for a limited duration and done right) can be very much warranted and beneficial.

You can have too much of a good thing

[PapayaSF]

Yes, patents can be abused, as with submarine patents. And patents can slow technological progress, as with the wing warping patent battles. But I don't think it logically follows that patents are always bad, and that technological progress would be faster without them. After all, the patent system was created to reduce trade secrecy and and encourage invention, and it certainly does that, however imperfectly.

In 100 years

[DNS-and-BIND]

In 100 years time, Bill Gates will be credited with inventing the computer, and Al Gore the first public computer network. Sad, but you know it's true. Who invented the light bulb?

Patents good?

[typical]

But I don't think it logically follows that patents are always bad

But it need not, for patents to be a net disadvantage.

After all, the patent system was created to reduce trade secrecy and and encourage invention, and it certainly does that, however imperfectly.

I'm not sure about that.

At the research facility where I worked before the current one that I'm working at, important inventions that really provided an edge over the competition was always kept a trade secret? Why? Because everyone in the industry cross-licensed with each other, because otherwise nobody could actually build anything. Patenting something was just giving it to the competition. Patents were reserved for less useful things.

The net effect was to keep anyone new from entering the market. Patents don't have to all be perfect -- if there are two hundred patents held by incumbents waiting to attack anyone wanting to enter the market, most of the patents can be thrown out and the newcomer is still going to have a hard time entering the market.

Who Did invent the TV?

[RotateLeftByte]

I know there are many claims to who is the inventor of the Telephone. There are similar claims about the TV.
The link to the "inventor" of the tv fails to completely mention John Logie Baird.
This very eccentric scotsman was a pioneer in TV development. There is still to this day a great debate amongst historians about who was first.

http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-baird.htm

The first TV pictures he sent were down a phone line!
At least the place where the worlds first TV station broadcast from is still standing and is a great monument to those involved.