Court Fight

This chapter discusses the system of protecting inventors. It elucidates Congress' removal of the issuance of patents from the duties of the secretary of state and its creation of a separate patent office with its own building. The chapter elaborates on the complex procedures of the Patent Office, designed to protect the rights of inventors. It is not generally known that inventions were often the subject of patent litigation pressed by other inventors who claimed to have made the discoveries first. In some instances, the lawsuit went as far as the Supreme Court. The chapter explores how some inventions have changed the course of the nation. It pays attention to the Lee de Forest and Edwin Howard Armstrong case over rights to the discovery of regeneration. For nearly twenty years, from 1914 to 1934, ego and pride combined with the promise of financial reward and fame to create what was, in the end, ruinous to each man.