Footnotes

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1. Norbert Wiener in his book Invention (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993) refers to this idea and contrasts it with another:

"I have been much impressed by the history of invention and discovery as a battleground of a most intense conflict between two notions of history. In one of these notions, which has been the favorite point of departure of most historians down till the end of the last century, history is largely a theater in which kings and statesmen and generals and great names play the leading parts. On the other hand, from Marx and Engels on, we have been taught to regard history as essentially an interplay of economic and great social forces, in which the individual means little more than a somewhat accidental embodiment of these forces." (p. 4)

Wiener takes as his mission the assessment of the individual's proper role in invention. This assignment is designed to help students explore that issue by putting themselves in the role of an inventor who could have changed history. Wiener's book can be a useful stimulus for discussion on this topic.

2. See M.E. Gorman, M. Mehalik, W.B. Carlson and M. Oblon (1993) "Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray and the Speaking Telegraph: A Cognitive Comparison," History of Technology , 15 (pp. 1-56) for a detailed historical comparison of these two inventors.

3. This idea was sketched on February 21st, 1876, by the inventor in "Experiments by A. Graham Bell, Vol. I", a notebook stored among the Bell papers at the Library of Congress. The sketch is reproduced and discussed in Gorman et al., op cit.

4. See Taylor. op. cit. (3), Chap. XI.

5. See Robert Bruce (1973) Bell: Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude. Boston: Little, Brown.

6. Ibid., 105.

7. On October 29, 1875, Gray wrote to his attorney A.L. Hayes that 'Bell seems to be spending all his energies on the talking telegraph. While this is very interesting scientifically it has no commercial value at present, for they can do much more business over a line by methods already in use than by that system.' See Gray to Hayes, Oct. 29, 1875, Box 2, GP.

8. For more information on Edison's telephone improvements, see M.E. Gorman & W.B. Carlson (1990) "Interpreting Invention as a Cognitive process: The Case of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and the Telephone", Science, Technology & Human Values, 15, 131-164.. If you use information about Edison's inventions, you have to treat it as part of the state of the art in your patent.

9. For more details on this controversy, see Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

10. See Michael Bliss, The Discovery of Insulin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

11. We have omitted the official petition form and other forms in these steps. You library will have the patent office's latest materials, which may help you in following the steps outlined here.