Many ideas people have occur at the same time or in close
proximity. Perhaps, this suggests a
collective conscience. For instance,
Alexander Graham Bell is credited for patenting the telephone, but at the about
same time he applied a German, Johann Philipp Reis, also applied for the same
patent. It was such a short period of
time that perhaps the German may have received the patent if perhaps he spent
less time warming his lunch, or his wife hadn’t nagged him to take out the
garbage sooner rather than later. Who
was first? And, more importantly; does
it matter? I understand that patents and
ideas are very important to business, yet it seems absurd to give a financial
monopoly to an inventor, when it was really two or more that had the idea at
the same time. These sorts of things end
up in courts, but when it comes to who is first, I wonder if there is usually
or even occasionally justice.
