Edison Invents....

Even today, if you work for a company, most patents are issued in the names of the individuals that worked on the invention, but all rights to the patent belong to the company.
I'm listed on a patent as one of the inventors of an HVAC system used in emergency vehicles, but I have absolutely no legal rights to that patent.

Question is: Does it really matter now?

So much of America's sense of achievement and sense of self is based on some of these historical accounts, accurate or not. Would there really be anything to gain by challenging them, or would that just be kicking a hornet's nest? Edison may not have invented the light bulb, but think of all the great American scientists who have come after him, wanting to follow in his footsteps. Do we really want to take that inspiration away from future generations?

One of the ironies about the history of technology is that the person who invents something rarely gets credit. The credit goes to the person who takes someone else's invention and makes it practical and/or cost effective. There are dozens of examples.

The elevator. Otis invented a break system that made it safe to use.
The Steam Engine. James Watt took existing, inefficient designs and made one that could run on continuously.
The PC. Apple took exiting hardware and software and put it all together in a cost effective package.
The light bulb has already been mentioned.
Henry Ford & the automobile
Singer & the sewing machine
Gillette & the safety razor
Samuel Colt & the revolver
Goodyear & the rubber tire
John Deere & the self cleaning plow

You can go on and on.

GTCGreg, the thing with patents is more bragging rights, even if you don't get any proceeds. Some companies use that as one of a list of thing to make a person eligible for higher promotion levels. It also looks good on a resume. My name was in a patent application at my previous employer for a method of detecting back-torque in torque screwdrivers at the time I got laid off. I probably should check to see how that is coming.

The idea that Edison was a great inventor goes back to our patent system. While the U.S. patent office was established in our Constitution to help promoter industrial growth, it's actual operation was set up by lawyers for the main benefit of lawyers. Edison knew this and had the resources to hire the best patent lawyers available. Our current patent system has major flaws and actually slows down innovation. The notion that you can patent the idea of using a blue led as a power indicator instead of a green one, or that taping on a phone screen two times calls up a different menu is ridicules. Apple has even patented the radius of the corners on their laptops just as a means to attack competitors in court.

You would think that what's inside would be covered by more meaningful patents. Sometimes these types of things (the corners) are meant to be used as a bargaining tool when a company is sued for other patent violations. "Well, if you are suing use for copying your multi-cell hyperventilated processor technology, we will counter sue because you copied the radius of our corners."

When I was going to engineering school, one of the other students was taking engineering as a pre-law course. He wanted to be able to get into patent law. He thing was "a good patent lawyer can take the exact same invention that has already been patented and get someone else a patent for the same thing."

Edison actually had invented a lot of things. And what he didn't invent, he standardized.

He did invent the phonograph and did it all by himself and this was the invention he was most proud of, not the light bulb.

For the light bulb, it was wildly known that electricity can create heat in a resistor and that hot stuff can glow if hot enough. Many scientists and inventors had tried to make use of those two facts. The major problem of burning up the resistor in air was so obvious that most inventors tried installing the glowing resistor in a glass container and the easiest shape to make is a bulb.

What Edison actually had done for the electric light bulb was commanding his technicians to test different materials to improve the service life of the filament. He also had the idea to test charred wool which was then perfected by the technicians.

He also had invented the radio tube by accident. He noticed a diode effect in light bulbs but never thought it as useful but had patented it anyway.

The real work of Edison was around the light bulb, designing and standardizing electric components and power generation and distribution for industry and residential purposes.
Many of those standards are still in use. Edison came up with the fuse plugs which are still used even today. He had also invented the first power meters for billing. At first, electric power was sold as an "unlimited plan" for a specific number of light bulbs. The customers didn't waste any power because the light bulbs were highly expensive and wear out rather quickly. But the customers could install more bulbs in secret. So first a relay was used disconnecting the power when the load was too high so the lights flickered violently. But then Edison soon came up with a much better way of billing customers. He invented some kind of electric clock which speeds up by power consumption. By comparing the meter clocks with the real time, the amount of used electricity could be determined and billed.

There are many more standards still around Edison came up with. He had standardized film material. The aspect ratio of TV and cinema screens was defined by Edison. Also there are leftovers in the computer industry because film material was used for punched tapes. This was then replaced by paper but they had kept the reels and dimensions. When the paper was replaced by magnetic tape, they kept the dimensions for the reels and other mechanism parts. The cabinets for the reel-to-reel tapes then defined the size of HDDs and fractions of those sizes were used for FDDs and then the modern HDDs which caused those odd 5¼ and 3½ sizes.

The screen resolution and fps of analogue TVs and early desktop computers is caused by a combination of what the rivals Tesla and Edison had standardized. Edison had set the aspect ratio (4:3) of moving pictures and Tesla had set the mains frequency. To avoid interference between the picture and the power frequency, the fps has to match the power frequency. Ultra fast solid state voltage regulators were not available when TVs were made. The picture size and brightness varied with the mains frequency and to keep this influence static on the screen, the TV had to operate with 60fps (US) or 50fps (EU). The limited bandwidth of an early RF transmission, Edison's aspect ratio and Tesla's AC power system forced the TV screen resolution to 240 lines@60fps. Since this was not enough, a trick was used to double the resolution. By transmitting 60 half-pictures instead of 60 full pictures, the screen resolution is doubled. And as a result, the 640x480 TV and (early) PC screen resolution was born.

Being I just saw another TV show, on the life of Nikola Tesla, it was Tesla that invented the electricity distribution system, in that Alternating current travels a hell of a lot further than a couple of hundred yards without degrading very quick, and Edison was so against this rival he electrocuted an Elephant to show how dangerous it was.

Tesla Invented...

Edison had a research lab with up to at peak 200 people "Inventing" for him, and he stole the very ideas from them, in that he claimed the glory for himself without ever bothering to think that the people working for him deserved a mention, let alone naming them.

He did invent the world "Hello", because that was voted for against the possible rival "Ahoy-Hoy", as Hello was never even heard of as a standard greeting before the telephone, telephone being something he "stole" from Alexander Graham Bell, and the phonograph he stole from another inventor because Edison had enough money to get to the patent office first with the idea of "saving" the electronic signals from a telephone onto a wax cylinder...
Not to sure on this, information is vague, but the idea of a circular platter was being invented before the cylinder, just still in research when Edison got patent.... and his money managed to swamp the market with the new invention.

But even the word "Hello" that is credited to Edison, was it his, or the result of his team of 200 inventors having a pole on what would be best?.

The Edison telephone, this one is a definite, it was at his bequest that the instrument was amplified, because he himself, Edison, was all but stone deaf?. His workers had to stand almost at his shoulder to be heard.
So Edison is partially responsible for any amplification that happens for the hard of hearing on telephones.


BTW, on me watching that show, its definitely strange, but, most of what was said on the thread above was "Covered" on that episode, the series is "America fact or fiction", which wasnt aired in UK until recently... anyone know when that show was created?.

....did they poach ideas from this site?. CT theory exists, I like to stoke the bonfires now and again??.. heh heh heh..

No, its just I dont remember where I got the idea for the thread from, and I just wanted to know if the TeeVee guide that said "NEW" was lying, on my guide it had it first shown in 2017, but new to the channel I was watching?.
The internet says it was first created as a series in 2013, I have no idea how many series were run and how late in series numbers the one I watched was.
Or if I had seen it before and forgotten. Which is quite possible. "Sometimers" condition?. Early senior citizen moment?.

National Geographic had a great series called "American Genius" that covered the patent battles between Tesla vs Edison, the Wright bros. vs Curtis, Jobs vs Gates, Colt vs Wesson and a lot of others. It was available on Netflix for a while, but they no longer seem to have it. The Tesla vs Edison is on Youtube.