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You can’t believe how many of the world’s biggest and most lucrative inventions are based on fraudulent ideas.
From the popular board game Monopoly to the soft light bulb, read on to discover the brilliant concepts that were snatched from their inventors.
They are all in U. S. dollars.
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Engineering professor Robert Kearns created the first intermittent cleaning formula in 1963 and filed a patent for his innovation the following year.
Eager to monetize his invention, which he modeled after a blinking eye, Kearns contacted the three automakers, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, in an effort to license his invention.
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All three rejected the concept but blatantly replicated the generation in their vehicles. Furious at those incredibly devious actions, Kearns sued the trio along with major automakers.
Without backing down, the die-hard educator won damages from Ford and Chrysler after an incredibly complex legal war that lasted more than a decade.
Courtesy call from family-owned distillers
In 2016, the creators of Jack Daniel’s revealed that a slave was instrumental in creating the recipe and approach to their famous Tennessee whiskey. For 150 years, the formula and procedure were attributed to the Rev. Daniel Call, a white Lutheran pastor from Lynchburg (pictured). holding a guitar).
Reverend Call is said to have taught Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel the ins and outs of alcohol distillation.
dpa alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
Actually, a guy named Nathan “Nearest” Green, who was a slave, taught the young liquor maker how to produce the beverage. In fact, Call is reported to have said, “Uncle Nearest is the most productive whiskey maker I know. “however, Green’s good luck was swept under the rug and the old reverend received the credit unfairly.
Today, 13. 3 million copies of this drink are sold each year and Jack Daniel’s is considered one of the most sought-after logos in the world. In 2017, a new whiskey logo called Uncle Nearest was introduced in Tennessee in honor of the true whiskey master. There are no known photographs of Nearest Green, however, the photo here shows his son George Green (left), sitting next to Jack Daniel.
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Monopoly, one of the best-selling board games of all time, has over 250 million copies.
Its oft-cited origin story tells of an unemployed salesman who created the game in his basement during the Great Depression, but like many corporate mythologies, the story is actually very big and the genuine story is as fierce as the game itself.
Courtesy of the Anspach Archives
Left-wing feminist Lizzie Magie invented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 to publicize the concept of an asset tax and warn about the risks of land grabbing. It was his game that Darrow ripped off and introduced to Parker Brothers in 1935, with a spelling mistake copied directly. of the original.
Parker Brothers has avoided lawsuits by obtaining the rights to The Landlord’s Game, and it took 40 years before the company admitted that Magic was the real mastermind behind the best-selling title.
paulasphotos / alamy Stock Photo
A must-have toy for young people around the world, LEGO generated a record turnover of around $9. 6 billion (£7. 6 billion) in 2023. Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder of the Danish company for the planet, came up with the idea for his corporate brand bricks in 1946 after seeing a demonstration of a plastic molding machine.
The machine produced plastic bricks designed by the British company Kiddicraft, which introduced its Bri-Plax interlocking construction cubes in the late 1940s.
Chas Saunter/CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/2. 0)
Although Christiansen has made strides in design, LEGO bricks are necessarily from Kiddicraft.
LEGO argued that Kiddicraft had insisted it was okay to use the design. But in 1982, LEGO shrewdly acquired the rights to Kiddicraft, settled out of court with Page’s company, and removed all references to Page and Kiddicraft from its company history.
Science. Am. New York [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Isaac Merritt Singer is widely credited with inventing the fashionable device and the company that bears his name. The product has generated billions of dollars in profits over the years and the company is synonymous with innovation around the world.
Except that Singer didn’t invent the contraption and accused him of stealing the design, adding its key component of stitching, from another pioneer of sewing devices, Elias Howe.
Isaac Singer [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Howe himself was no stranger to plagiarism and was accused of hacking much of the design of his creation through inventor John Fisher. Unlike Fisher, however, Howe patented his device in 1846. Armed with this patent, he sued Singer for forfeiture of royalties, launching several legal challenges.
Howe won the trials that spanned between 1849 and 1854 and obtained a lump sum of royalties as well as a percentage of Singer’s profits. Fisher, on the other hand, was given nothing.
Pierre Borel [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Many believe that Galileo Galilei is the inventor of the telescope. But while the astronomical genius of the Renaissance is considered to be the father of everything from observational astronomy to modern physics, he wasn’t the one who actually came up with the idea.
This difference deserves to be passed on to Dutch eyewear designer Hans Lipperhey.
Giuseppe Bertini [Public Domain], Wikimedia Commons
Lipperhey envisioned the first telescope in 1608 and even attempted to obtain a patent for his invention, but it was not granted. Galileo was familiar with the design, dubbed “Dutch attitude glasses” and might have had access to detailed instructions.
Anyway, the Italian astronomer wasted no time in creating his own edition of Lipperhey’s innovation, necessarily stealing the fundamental design.
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Thomas Edison invented the soft light bulb, or so they told you in school. The fact is that the American innovator was inspired by the concepts of other inventors and combined them with his own knowledge to create the first incandescent light bulb that was commercially successful in 1879. .
Part of the idea came from Canadian inventors Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans, who sold Edison their patent on light bulbs after failing to secure financial support.
Tyne Archives & Museums
Edison also relied heavily on Joseph Swan’s designs for electric lighting with carbon filaments, which had appeared in Scientific American. Since Swan (pictured) had filed a patent for this generation before Edison, the British inventor filed a patent infringement lawsuit and won.
Edison also based some facets of his design on the paintings of American engineer William Sayer, a revelation that ultimately led the U. S. government to cancel his patents.
Charles Francis Jenkins [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Believe it or not, Edison has been accused of appropriating the concepts of several of his most prominent inventions, at most the movie projector.
Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat first demonstrated the symbol projection device they called the Phantoscope in 1895. But unable to finance the manufacture of the product, the two men sold their concept to The Kinetoscope Company.
Metropolitan Printing Company/Raff
The company then turned to Thomas Edison for funding. Eager to further increase his notoriety, Edison, a marketing expert, shelled out the money on the condition that he be credited as the sole inventor.
The real inventors were removed from the product story and renamed the Edison Vitascope.
Author unknown [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Many also credit Edison with inventing the phonograph, also known as the gramophone or record player. The American inventor designed in 1877 a device capable of recording and reproducing sound and described this innovation as his “baby. “
Although Edison is believed to have invented the device independently, a French printer named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (pictured) created the first sound recording device.
Levin C. Handy [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
De Martinville granted a patent for his phonautograph device in 1857, 20 years before Edison surprised the world with the phonograph, while another French inventor, Charles Cros, developed the first way to record sound before Edison in 1877.
Despite this, it is Edison, pictured here with his innovation, who is credited with inventing the technology.
Courtesy of Connect. U
Tainted by blatant, dirty tricks and alleged plagiarism, Facebook’s early days were difficult, to say the least. In 2002, Harvard academics Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss teamed up with fellow student Divya Narendra to create the precursor to Facebook, which they called HarvardConnection (later ConnectU). ).
In November 2003, his classmate Mark Zuckerberg was hired to manage the social networking site, but unfortunately for them, he had something else in mind.
Courtesy of Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook
Zuckerberg had caused a stir on campus last summer with a Hot or Not-style site called FaceMash, for which he was nearly ousted. While reportedly running for the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra, Zuckerberg was in the process of creating his own social network. , which he filed under the name thefacebook. com in February 2004, leaving the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra dry.
Convinced that Zuckerberg had looted their intellectual property, they sued him and, after a lengthy legal battle, secured a $65 million settlement in 2008. This equates to $94 million (£74 million) in 2024.
Len / Alamy Collection Stock Photo
Guglielmo Marconi is universally identified as the inventor of radio. The Italian innovator was praised for introducing the generation to the world and won a joint Nobel Prize for his efforts in 1909.
All this adulation must have angered Nikola Tesla (pictured), who claimed that Marconi had used 17 of his patents to expand this breakthrough.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty
It’s arguable that Tesla is the true inventor of the generation, but it’s undeniable that the Serbian-born engineer and futurist provided many of the concepts that allowed Marconi to commercialize the device. Although Tesla had already received patents for the fundamental radio generation in the United States. In 1904 the U. S. Patent Office revoked its ruling and granted Marconi a patent for the invention of the radio.
It is believed that Marconi’s strong monetary backing was one explanation for this decision. Tesla tried to sue, but didn’t have the money to plead his case.
Author unknown/CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/3. 0)
A groundbreaking innovation with a myriad of applications, the laser is as lucrative as it is flexible, with annual global sales of around $18 billion (£14. 3 billion). Columbia University graduate student Gordon Gould invented the first technology to create an intense beam of monochromatic light. Powered by radiation and coined the term “laser” in 1957.
But because he lacked a working model, the educational physicist thought he wouldn’t patent the concept and waited until 1959 to do so.
Courtesy of the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Meanwhile, colleagues in his lab had filed their own patents for the technology, obviously stealing the idea. Gould filed a lawsuit and fought in court for 30 grueling years.
The long struggle is valued. In 1987, the current inventor of the laser received 48 patents, not to mention millions of dollars in royalties.
Author unknown [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Did Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone? Italy disagrees. In 2008, on the occasion of its 200th anniversary, the country’s government proclaimed that the Florentine telecommunications pioneer, Antonio Meucci, was the real inventor, and rightly so.
In 1871, Meucci invented the telettrofono and filed a patent reservation for the device, several years before Bell, who worked in the same laboratory, filed his patent.
Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology [Public domain], Wikimedia Commons
Meucci attempted to download a license for his telegraph, but the Western Union Telegraph company rejected it and the patent reservation expired in 1874.
If the Italian inventor had amassed £225 (£180) in current money, Bell most likely would not have obtained his patent. Meucci tried to sue, but died before the process could be completed.
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