25 APRIL .... the day of the father of the radio : MARCONI

To be credited as an "inventor" of something, you have to spend money and register a claim for that recognition. That's the very reason why the USPO exists in the first place.

Without such official registration, you cannot claim credit or recognition to have invented anything, even though you might "feel" that you did before the patent was ever issued.

The "inventor" of something is always credited to the individual who actually goes through the process of procuring a patent. Contrary to popular belief, an inventor is NOT any individual who first conceptualized an idea of something. That's not how it works.

Marconi was a businessman. He paid money to procure a patent when others did not. That process of filing and procuring a patent officially recognizes and credits him as the inventor.

...Understand now?

 

Psalm 106: Line 1

I couldn't resist;-)

 

You also need to spend more time studying the dictionary and resist making up definitions on the fly.

See above what Invent and Invention represent. The idea of Claim and Patent are NOT in those DICTIONARY definitions.

More input from the unknowing...

 

I guess all of us inventors and lawyers are just plain ignorant.

We need not go further than the Old Testament and the Dictionary.

Sorry Bob. I was thrust out of Eden long ago, and accept the responsibility of going beyond the borders of the Garden.

Or Webster.

Is there someone at U of K you can talk to? Drive up to Lexington and ask...

I am infrequently in E-town--despite the fact I have a property and a corn and bean farm there--and thus have no time to assist.

 

Guess again...

inventor - someone who is the first to think of or make something.

Thesaurus:
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/inventor

Just because someone "feels" that a word means this or that does not make it so...

As a child, my father taught me this:
Ask a child how many legs a cow has and the child will say "Four." Then ask if you call its tail a leg, now many doe it have. The child will usually say, "Five." The response to this is: "No, it still has four legs. Just because you call the tail a leg does not make it a leg."

There are some here who should have been taught that just because someone "calls" something a thingy or "feels" that it must be so does not make it so.

Has anything been learned here or are people still ignoring the dictionary and going with their gut feelings?

 

Bob,

Give it up. You are just wrong on this. 'VWM will lock and shut the thread if you waste any more of it.

Why?

Because factual information is not being accepted for its reality, and you have taken the thread into biblic based dissing and dictionary defenses.

 

The key operator here is being CREDITED as the inventor. But only at the USPO.

People need to learn that there is a world apart from the USPO.

And as for those whose main claim to fame is that they are inventors as claimed in a USPO, consider how many people have challenged the patents of others because those patents were based on knowledge derived from the thinking and experimentation of others... Marconi did this and he only bought patent rights when he decide to market the ideas of others.

Go back and see the history of Stubblefield and Loomis. Then you can start to get an idea of how people were treated by the USPO and how many of their decisions were political and base on the USPO's art of definition on the fly.

I'm reminded of a famous lawyer's comment: "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

 

Voluntary Moderators can do whatever they want even if it's to shut down DICTIONARY based definitions and not restrictive concepts and personal definitions.

Ignorance is bliss. Be happy! But make sure you ignore the dictionary in the process. No man is a [fractal] island.

 

They don't use dictionaries in the court of law to define intellectual property rights as it pertains to any "inventor or invention." They use written laws instead of dictionaries.

The unknowing you are referring to has a long history of operating a business and has acquired a broad understanding of the patent filing process through the USPTO over the years. In the legal sense, an "inventor" is an individual who has paid the required filing fees, filed a claim and who has received official legal recognition by procuring a patent to an invention.

So basically if you don't have one of these, then you cannot legally claim to be the inventor of anything.



Marconi had filed a patent and that's why he's credited as an inventor. You can disagree with that, but that's just how it works.

 

You speak of "In the legal sense" and "...basically..." but you also ignore what the dictionary says.

I know Chip's background. I respect that. But it is evident and obvious neither of you know MY background as a writer and linguist. I KNOW what words mean and am not restricted to the Legal Sense of definition. I see language in an overview sense where language applies to a much greater audience and in many ways.

I presented what the dictionary says. Both you and Chip insist on seeing things from a strictly legal sense where that is just a minute area of the language. And I'm betting that you are influenced by Chip's background and no doubt are swayed by it. I would be too if I were the one to read this series of comments.

Go back and see how the dictionary, not a Legal Dictionary, defines Invent, Inventor and Invention and if you are honest, you can see that you both are addressing a fragmented section of definitions as pertains to Patents but with some added slants to the definition and this is not honest.

I make no apologies for my views because they are based on dictionary definitions and not prejudice.

Marconi invented nothing. He took others' ideas and made good on them, with some improvements along the way. He bought up patents so he would not get in trouble when he used the ideas commercially. Those patents were others' ideas and they were ideas BEFORE they were patented. They were their inventions per dictionary definition but the USPO and patent attorneys love to pretend to have the final word and tilt it their way by their definitions.

It reminds me of the Society of Professional Engineers' practice of going after anyone who hangs out a shingle as a consultant when they are not a member of the Society of Professional Engineers. The person may be well qualified and provide good advice but heaven forbid he is allowed to get away with this sin. He's taken to court and risks heavy penalties — all because he failed to adhere to the Society's legally backed definition of what is a professional engineer and by being listed by the Society. Either toe the line or go to court.

I concede that looking at this from a USPO and patent-owner's perspective, I understand what Chip is saying. However, those like him are scared spitless that others will not accept his definition of Inventor, Invention, etc., lest there is a risk of losing credibility.

I do not make rank and wild statements about what an Inventor is, about what Invention means or about what the nebulous meaning of "claim" means as relates to patents; I only state what the dictionary says those words and terms mean. Therefore, you are not arguing with me, you are arguing with the dictionary and dictionary meanings and the struggle is sure a tough one, huh?

Now it's time to get over this little tug-of-war and move on. It's time to agree that Marconi was a great marketer, that he pulled others' ideas and inventions together and made a workable system of radio communications (with some improvements) but to ignore those others who supported his endeavors all to the exclusion Marconi is a form of intentional blinding to what is recorded history.

There are many books written about others in the history of Radio. The first book I read about Marconi was in 1955 and it showed how he did what he did but it also outlined what led up to his "discovery" and the gunshot heard around the world. It also documented how Radio was instrumental in the lead-up to World War II, how the Purple Machine was no more than a Teletype machine with the coded wires switched around. The history of Marconi and Radio is not a moment in time, it was an era and we are still in that era. To focus on one element of that history is narrow-minded and shortsighted.

Giving honor and respect where it is due, you have to give place for Marconi AND many others who gave him the ability to get to where he had a marketable system. If not for those others, Marconi would be known in history as a rich Italian.

 

Your reversion to dictionary and biblical allusions is not worthy of additional discussion. I am very concerned that your comments have misled many on what it means to invent, and be an inventor. It is not easy; requires knowledge and adherence to various formalisms; and is not properly informed by many others. You insist on promulgating the latter. Your comments on attribution of invention, 'ideas' as invention, and so on, are just plain wrong.

Marconi was a sparse but important inventor--yes a real honest to gosh INVENTOR-- whose influence has been especially re-born with the re-use of the term 'wireless', and the emergence of 'metamaterials'. Forcing the formation of wireless and radio by leveraging many separate inventions, including but not limited to his own, Marconi thrust the species into the radio-electronic age.

And no one else can say that.

 

No one is being narrow minded and I certainly recognize there were many other "innovators" involved with what lead up to the "invention" of radio which was officially determined to be Marconi in the year 1904. However these other innovators leading up to the invention of radio, were not the actual inventors of radio no matter how you slice it. Following your logic, should the invention of radio be credited to the individuals responsible for discovering electricity or light bulbs? I mean after all, without electricity, light bulbs and Tesla coils, the radio would never have been invented in the first place right? But that's not how things work or how the USPTO see's things does it? The famous dispute of the Tesla coil and Marconi's radio invention was a matter that was settled by the USPTO a very long time ago.

Similarly, we could have similar disputes.... So was Thomas Edison actually the first person to discover the light bulb? No, of course he didn't, but he perfected it and since he did file a patent for it, in the legal sense he's been credited as the inventor of the light bulb as we know it today in the history books.

What about Tesla? What did he invent exactly...are we giving credit where it's due? For example long before Marconi invented "radio" in the year 1904, In the year 1898, Tesla clearly demonstrated a radio controlled boat that used a coherer based radio control device which was called "telautomaton" to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. So who really was the first to discover "radio?" Perhaps we could even dispute the real "inventor" to discover radio was Maxwell who first theorized about the existence of electromagnetic waves around the year 1820?

Perhaps we could even argue the real inventor of electricity was the Ancient Egyptians too for that matter? Unfortunately the Ancient Egyptians didn't file a patent with the USPTO so they are not officially credited as the inventor of anything including electricity, the Dendera light bulb, or even Baghdad battery technology for that matter despite the idea there's much compelling evidence to support these were all used during this time in ancient history.

So I suppose one could dispute the concept of many invented things like radio, the light bulb and many other things written into the history books too, which actually dates back to a much more distant time than Thomas Edison, Marconi and Tesla.

So if you want to give credit where it's due using your approach, then let's rewrite the history books to more accurately reflect all that information too. Is that what you're suggesting should be done?

 

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Dictionaries don’t lie. One of the tools used by those who are adept at misleading people is to redefine what the dictionary says into whatever they want it to mean and/or ignore what the dictionary says. Another tool they use is to blame others of something to distract from a weak argument.


Invent

vb

1. to create or devise (new ideas, machines, etc)
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/invent


in•ven•tor

(ɪnˈvɛn tər)

n.

a person who invents, esp. one who devises some new process, appliance, machine, or article; one who makes inventions.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/inventor


invention

(ɪnˈvɛnʃən)

n

1. the act or process of inventing

2. something that is invented

3. (Law) patent law the discovery or production of some new or improved process or machine that is both useful and is not obvious to persons skilled in the particular field
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/invention

claim

(kleɪm)

vb (mainly tr)

1. to demand as being due or as one's property; assert one's title or right to: he claimed the record.

2. (takes a clause as object or an infinitive) to assert as a fact; maintain against denial: he claimed to be telling the truth.

3. to call for or need; deserve: this problem claims our attention.

4. to take: the accident claimed four lives.

n

5. an assertion of a right; a demand for something as due

6. an assertion of something as true, real, or factual: he made claims for his innocence.

7. a right or just title to something; basis for demand: a claim to fame.

8. lay claim to stake a claim to to assert one's possession of or right to

9. anything that is claimed, esp in a formal or legal manner, such as a piece of land staked out by a miner
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/claim


Note: Is the term Patent Office in any of the above definitions? Sure, it says “patent law” under "inventiion" but even here it says: “the discovery or production of some new or improved process or machine that is both useful and is not obvious to persons skilled in the particular field” — nothing about the patent itself.

I’m talking Invention as regular/normal people know it to mean and not the definition from a patent attorney or someone who bases his entire existence on some invention.

Defining Invention as a strictly Patent Law term alone is restricting it to that field. The topic of this forum is about who invented radio, not who patented the idea/discovery. And yes, you can separate the two IF you see what the common-usage dictionary says.

Trying to equate Invention to Patenting and not allowing any other concept, such as a dictionary concept (not merely a Legal Dictionary) is not being honest. Making it solely fit this concept is not allowing for any other view on the topic. Going by the dictionary definition of Invent, Invention, and Inventor is NOT misleading anyone. Sorry!

As for misleading readers here, I am quoting from the dictionary. It is not a strictly formatted legal dictionary nor a quote from the US Patent Office. It is cited from dictionaries and any skewing of what the common usage dictionaries say is restrictive and self-serving.

 

Sorry, I don't consider your comment pertinent to the common usage dictionary definitions.

You commented regarding to "[my] logic" and that's "your" logic. No problem, everyone has an opinion.

My opinions are based on non-restrictive dictionary definitions that normal people accept and do not try to redefine or ignore.

 

You're trying to apply what's written in a dictionary as the legal interpretation of things.

A dictionary is not a compendium of written legal laws.