For all our professed democratic values, we Americans like to put big-talking, risk-taking guys on pedestals. And then reward them for their pioneering enterprise鈥攅ven if their iconic American triumph consists of shrewd marketing and possible theft.
Forgive my rant. I鈥檓 recuperating from learning that Alexander Graham Bell arguably did not 鈥渋nvent鈥� the telephone.
According to Invented by Law, Christopher Beauchamp鈥檚 intriguing case study of Bell鈥檚 patent and how it affected the early development of the telephone, Bell鈥檚 original patent application was 鈥渞ife with improprieties.鈥� On Valentine鈥檚 Day 1874, electrical engineer Elisha Gray filed a confidential 鈥渃aveat鈥� with the patent office, to protect his idea for 鈥淭ransmitting Vocal Sounds Telegraphically.鈥� It apparently sat in a pile. The very same day, Bell鈥檚 lawyer hand-delivered Bell鈥檚 competing patent application to the patent office鈥攁nd got it time-stamped.
Bell and his partners almost surely got inside information and favorable treatment from the patent examiner, who was in deep debt to Bell鈥檚 attorney. By March 1874, when Bell famously did succeed in transmitting speech and summoning his assistant Watson, his supposed invention resembled not his original patent but that of his rival Gray, who鈥攂y virtue of that time-stamp鈥擝ell had beaten to the patent office by hours.
Still, Alexander Graham Bell was widely celebrated as the genius whose invention 鈥渁nnihilated space and cuddled the cities of the Republic around a single fireside.鈥� The Steve Jobs of his day, his legend reflects a public appetite for heroes, obscuring both his appropriations from others and the shady shortcuts that enabled his success.
This says less about him than about us. Success immunizes celebrated Americans from significant scrutiny, especially if they鈥檙e white, male, and wealthy. And even when they鈥檙e scrutinized, their celebrity luster remains undimmed鈥攊ndeed, may even be enhanced by 鈥渂ad boy鈥� exploits. Look at Mark Zuckerberg, an American icon thanks to his 鈥渋nvention鈥� of Facebook and $47.5 billion fortune. The Social Network showed Zuckerberg pilfering the Facebook idea from Harvard classmates who had hired him to write the software, and arguably the Hollywood blockbuster just added to his legend.
The 鈥済reat man鈥� narrative, attributing invention to individual genius, can lead us astray. It distorts and undermines scientific inquiry, which is a process. Beauchamp makes this point, but his almost exclusive focus on Alexander Graham Bell undersells this argument, which could be bolstered by other genius inventor myths. Perhaps you credit Samuel F.B. Morse with the invention of the telegraph. But what of physicist Joseph Henry, whose discoveries in the field of electromagnetism were the foundation of Morse鈥檚 work? Henry even developed an early telegraph, which he demonstrated to his Princeton students. But the good professor valued research and open inquiry over profit.
Beauchamp uses Bell鈥檚 story to examine the crucial role of patent law in shaping the history of an invention鈥攚ho triumphs in the marketplace and the history books. Patent law, by allowing an individual or company to stake a claim to a piece of the continuous process of scientific inquiry, often frames the invention narrative we come to accept.
It can also undermine the public interest 鈥攊n Bell鈥檚 time and today. In 2013, the 桃子视频went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate Myriad Genetics鈥� patents on two breast cancer genes鈥攑atents that not only made genetic testing for breast cancer exorbitantly expensive, but also stymied medical research because researchers needed to obtain prior consent from Myriad.
Myriad lost its patent battle. Bell鈥檚 legend survives because his patent lawyers prevailed. Bell鈥檚 brilliant attorneys went for the broadest possible claim, stepping away from the specifics of his original patent to contend that Bell had patented voice transmission. And in 1888, in a hugely controversial 4-3 Supreme Court split, Bell triumphed. The Court鈥檚 minority maintained that Bell only won because his years of fame had already cast him as a winner, noting that it is 鈥減erfectly natural for the world to take the part of a man who has already achieved eminence.鈥�
Bell鈥檚 questionable patent gave Bell Telephone a monopoly on the American telephone industry that extended from 1876 to 1894, when his patent rights expired. Was the public well served? Beauchamp remains seemingly noncommittal as he accumulates evidence that the company鈥檚 profit motive subverted the public interest. Bell Telephone鈥檚 large-scale rate increases sparked populist fury鈥攁nd state attempts at regulation were met with ruthless retaliation by Ma Bell. For example, in 1885, when Indiana sought to limit phone rates to $3 a month, the local Bell exchange ripped out a quarter of Indianapolis鈥� lines and the southern part of the state was left entirely without service.
Bell Telephone鈥檚 monopoly stifled the growth of phone service. There were 250,000 phones in the United States when the company鈥檚 monopoly ended. Five years later, by 1899, the number was over one million鈥攁nd in the following five-year intervals the numbers leaped to three million and seven million.
Across the pond, Beauchamp notes, Sweden demonstrated what could happen without a patent law to enforce monopoly. Swedish engineer L. M. Ericsson developed his own version of the phone to compete with the Bell franchise鈥攁nd by the 1890s, Stockholm had the highest number of telephones per capita of any city in the world. Ericsson鈥檚 firm 鈥渂ecame a leader in innovation and export.鈥�
The rationale for patents is that they promote invention. This claim seems doubtful, at least with regard to the telephone. reminds us of Dr. Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine鈥攁nd deliberately never filed for a patent. Pizzigati contrasts the public-spirited Dr. Salk with today鈥檚 patent-holding billionaires:
鈥淲ho owns the patent on this vaccine?鈥� [journalist Edward R.] Murrow asked the newly famous doctor.
鈥淲ell, the people, I would say,鈥� Salk replied. 鈥淭here is no patent. Could you patent the sun?鈥�
Beauchamp鈥檚 mild-mannered book avoids ideology, but to me it reads like a wonky addendum to The Big Short, the book and movie displaying capitalism run wildly amuck. Patent law, like finance, seems to have developed a culture of obscurity and expertise that serves to enrich a select few. 鈥淭rust us, we know what we鈥檙e doing,鈥� they say. And we oblige, treating our profiteers like prophets and visionaries even when they screw us.
