From: "Geo" 

"Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
news:42c7abf8{at}w3.nls.net...

> The period between 1873 and 1915 was certainly an innovative one. For
> instance, it included the major patent-producing years of America's
> greatest inventor, Thomas Edison (1847-1931). Edison patented more than
> 1000 inventions, including the incandescent bulb, electricity generation
> and distribution grids, movie cameras and the phonograph."

Lets go the other way, picture what the world would be like if Thomas
Edison was allowed to have patents that lasted life plus 70 years like
todays copyrights last.

The light bulb, electric generation, distribution grids, movie cameras and
the phonograph all would have been controlled by the same company up until
2001?

yeah, what a wonderful world that would have created... and with the funds
from those inventions they would have bought the patents to most of the new
stuff like TV, CD's, DVD's, radio, satellite broadcasting, etc..

Geo.

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