"Playstation Wars", capacitors, and Lemley-isms
A story loosely titled "Playstation Wars" is making the rounds, suggesting that demand for Playstations has stoked a vicious war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The concept is de-bunked in a post What's All This "PlayStation Wars" Business?
Most of the posts do not go into detail about what in Playstations is creating a demand from the metal tantalum, which can be refined from the ore coltan.
Among other things, tantalum gets used in electrolytic capacitors, which get used in a lot of current electronics, including cell phones.
There's an interesting patent story to electrolytic capacitors. The first attempt at a modern electrolytic capacitor was patented by Julius Lilienfeld in 1926. The Lilienfeld capacitor was not a big commercial success, and was displaced by the "Mershon Condenser" for uses in radio.
But wait... the name Julius Lilienfeld sounds familiar. Yes, he is the guy who also patented what would become the field effect transistor, more than twenty years later in time. Indeed, Lilienfeld's work is cited on the first Bell Labs transistor patents, and in fact caused a few Bell Labs transistor patent applications to be rejected.
Naturally, this brings us to a Lemley-ism. Back on 30 March 08, there was an article in the New York Times by Matt Richtel titled Edison ...Wasn’t He the Guy Who Invented Everything?, which included:
“It’s rare that you’ve got a major breakthrough that wasn’t developed by multiple people at about the same time,” said Mark Lemley, professor of intellectual property at Stanford Law School.
Or, for that matter, on the same day. Say, for instance, Feb. 14, 1876, when both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed papers with the United States Patent Office to register their competing telephone technologies. Years earlier, the Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci devised his own version of the telephone, but ultimately couldn’t afford the patent application process to defend his innovation.
History remembers Bell, while his rivals are footnotes known mostly by aficionados of intellectual-property trivia.
“It’s not that we wouldn’t have had the telephone. Not only would we have had it, we would have had it the same day,” Mr. Lemley said, adding: “The people who aren’t the winners in the historical dispute sort of fade into obscurity.”
Richtel apparently didn't bother to verify Lemley's interpretation of what Gray "had" in 1876, although it did come out in the lengthy telephone patent wars, wherein the established Western Union, along with Gray and Edison, went after Bell. In fact, Gray himself admitted he had not reduced anything to practice.
Bell Labs did not "invent" the concept of the field effect transistor in 1947; Lilienfeld invented (and patented) the concept nearly 20 years earlier. Lilienfeld was first on the scene with an electrolytic capacitor, the thing we are talking about in the context of Playstations in July 2008. Of course, a more significant negation of Lemley's It’s rare that you’ve got a major breakthrough that wasn’t developed by multiple people at about the same time is Chester Carlson's invention of xerography. After Carlson had invented xerography, in the absence of anyone else, IBM (among others) told him it was worthless. After Carlson's success in the 1960's, IBM spent the 1970's in a fruitless attempt to create their own version of the "worthless" invention, more than thirty years AFTER Carlson's initial patent.
*** See also
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-lemley-right-about-bell-and-gray.html -->
Page 196 mentions a letter written by Gray to Bell in March 1877: "I do not, however, claim even the credit of inventing it, as I do not believe in a mere description of an idea that has never been reduced to practice .. should be dignified with the name invention." In court, Gray confirmed the authenticity of the letter, and said to Western Union counsel: "I'll swear to it, and you can swear at it!" One wonders what Mark Lemley and the New York Times were thinking when they suggested Gray's invention was good to go.
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-fighting-giants.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/05/theory-of-invention-illustrated-with.html
***
And recall Lemley, in the Stanford Law Review, credited Gary Boone as the inventor of the integrated circuit. When one is confused about the invention itself, it is indeed difficult to work through multiple putative inventors.
***
Of the Times itself-->
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/07/nuts.html
Most of the posts do not go into detail about what in Playstations is creating a demand from the metal tantalum, which can be refined from the ore coltan.
Among other things, tantalum gets used in electrolytic capacitors, which get used in a lot of current electronics, including cell phones.
There's an interesting patent story to electrolytic capacitors. The first attempt at a modern electrolytic capacitor was patented by Julius Lilienfeld in 1926. The Lilienfeld capacitor was not a big commercial success, and was displaced by the "Mershon Condenser" for uses in radio.
But wait... the name Julius Lilienfeld sounds familiar. Yes, he is the guy who also patented what would become the field effect transistor, more than twenty years later in time. Indeed, Lilienfeld's work is cited on the first Bell Labs transistor patents, and in fact caused a few Bell Labs transistor patent applications to be rejected.
Naturally, this brings us to a Lemley-ism. Back on 30 March 08, there was an article in the New York Times by Matt Richtel titled Edison ...Wasn’t He the Guy Who Invented Everything?, which included:
“It’s rare that you’ve got a major breakthrough that wasn’t developed by multiple people at about the same time,” said Mark Lemley, professor of intellectual property at Stanford Law School.
Or, for that matter, on the same day. Say, for instance, Feb. 14, 1876, when both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray filed papers with the United States Patent Office to register their competing telephone technologies. Years earlier, the Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci devised his own version of the telephone, but ultimately couldn’t afford the patent application process to defend his innovation.
History remembers Bell, while his rivals are footnotes known mostly by aficionados of intellectual-property trivia.
“It’s not that we wouldn’t have had the telephone. Not only would we have had it, we would have had it the same day,” Mr. Lemley said, adding: “The people who aren’t the winners in the historical dispute sort of fade into obscurity.”
Richtel apparently didn't bother to verify Lemley's interpretation of what Gray "had" in 1876, although it did come out in the lengthy telephone patent wars, wherein the established Western Union, along with Gray and Edison, went after Bell. In fact, Gray himself admitted he had not reduced anything to practice.
Bell Labs did not "invent" the concept of the field effect transistor in 1947; Lilienfeld invented (and patented) the concept nearly 20 years earlier. Lilienfeld was first on the scene with an electrolytic capacitor, the thing we are talking about in the context of Playstations in July 2008. Of course, a more significant negation of Lemley's It’s rare that you’ve got a major breakthrough that wasn’t developed by multiple people at about the same time is Chester Carlson's invention of xerography. After Carlson had invented xerography, in the absence of anyone else, IBM (among others) told him it was worthless. After Carlson's success in the 1960's, IBM spent the 1970's in a fruitless attempt to create their own version of the "worthless" invention, more than thirty years AFTER Carlson's initial patent.
*** See also
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-lemley-right-about-bell-and-gray.html -->
Page 196 mentions a letter written by Gray to Bell in March 1877: "I do not, however, claim even the credit of inventing it, as I do not believe in a mere description of an idea that has never been reduced to practice .. should be dignified with the name invention." In court, Gray confirmed the authenticity of the letter, and said to Western Union counsel: "I'll swear to it, and you can swear at it!" One wonders what Mark Lemley and the New York Times were thinking when they suggested Gray's invention was good to go.
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-fighting-giants.html
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/05/theory-of-invention-illustrated-with.html
***
And recall Lemley, in the Stanford Law Review, credited Gary Boone as the inventor of the integrated circuit. When one is confused about the invention itself, it is indeed difficult to work through multiple putative inventors.
***
Of the Times itself-->
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/07/nuts.html
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 8:59 AM
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