121 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 109

[Arkenputtyknife]

Ah, but those where not incandesant lightbulbs.

Yes they were. Read the patents. Edison was initially refused a patent because his filament lamp was too similar to the one in the British patent.

What Edison did was (a) recognize the potential of the idea; (b) put a helluva lot of research and hard work into making it practical (extending the filament's life from a few hours to, eventually, a thousand hours or so); and (c) marketing to get people using the thing.

Edison deserves top marks and full credit for vision and doing the hard work needed to give us the incandescent electric light (instead of just patenting an undeveloped idea and sitting on it like his predecessors), but he didn't invent the concept.