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Alexander Graham Bell - Patent Thief?
DynaSoar writes "MSNBC is carrying an AP article reviewing a book, due out January 7, that claims to show definitive evidence that Bell stole the essential idea for telephony from Elisha Gray. Author Seth Shulman shows that Bell's notebooks contain false starts, and then after a 12-day gap during which he visited the US Patent Office, suddenly show an entirely different design, very similar to Gray's design for multiplexing Morse code signals. Shulman claims that Bell copied the design from Gray's patent application and was improperly given credit for earlier submission, with the help of a corrupt patent examiner and aggressive lawyers. Shulman also claims that fear of being found out is the reason Bell distanced himself from the company that carried his name. And if Gray Telephone doesn't seem to roll off the tongue, Shulman also noted that both of them were two decades behind the German inventor Johann Philipp Reis, who produced the first working telephony system."
I don't think you have to look much farther than calculus (Newton and Leibnoz) or evolution (Darwin and Wallace) or the incandescant light bulb (Edison and a cast of hundreds) to see that this is so.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Marconi *WAS* Bill Gates more so than anyone but Bill himself. He took existing technology and used clever legal maneuvering to build a monopoly. he used his wealth to buy out or destroy any competition. Radio was NOT invented by him. Tesla did it, but was more interested in transmitting power than information. A number of others had working radio inventions too, but no one saw the commercial prospects clearly. Marconi did see them and the legal/semi-legal shenanigans would have brought a smile to Bill G. He didn't SELL radios, he LEASED them to ship owners and provided the operators. These operators were told NOT to communicate with ship or shore stations run by any other company but Marconi! Doesn't that sound familiar! The scheme fell apart when the Titanic inspired the first SOLAS convention and rules for wireless. Read Thunderstruck for the amazing details of all this. Ham and CB operators will get a laugh at the fact that intentional QRM started basically with the invention of the second radio :(