Lots of snipping here since this is a long thread and I want to reply
mainly to this point.
>>In-Reply-To: <l03010d01b193935ee253@[198.164.201.218]>
>><snip>
>>And speaking of books one could easily write one the size of a major city's
>telephone directory with the dirty tricks that put George Eastman's Kodak
>where it is today. Everybody knows that Kodak lost to Polaroid a few years
>ago but few people have any idea that George Eastman put **MANY** other
>competitors out of business prior to that. Polaroid lost a lot of business
>but was strong enough to survive while Kodak was ripping it off. Such was
>not the case with hundreds, if not thousands of other companies. Perhaps
>the best case was that of Hannibal Goodwin of Newark (NJ, USA) who produced
>the first flexible film (nitrocellulose) in 1886. By the time those who
>bought his patent won in 1914, Goodwin was out of business and **this is
>what matters to me** nobody on earth can say what he could have achieved
>had he been allowed to live and prosper normally.
>
More snipping here ....
>Luis Nadeau
>NADEAUL@NBNET.NB.CA
>Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
>
>
>
There is a pretty full account of the Goodwin vs: Kodak patent fight
given in
_Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photogrqphic Industry
1839 to 1925_ Reese V. Jenkins, Baltimore, 1975, The Johns Hopkins
University Press
Hard cover ISBN 0-8018-1588-6
Soft cover ISBN 0-8018-3549-6
Goodwin had problems partly because he couldn't afford good attorneys
either to deal with the patent office or to represent him in court.
A better example of a bad patent litegation is RCA vs: Edwin Armstrong
over Armstrong's FM patents. This was the subject of a "Front Line"
program a couple of years ago. RCA continued to prosecute this case
despite the repeated advice of its own attorneys that Armstrong's claims
were valid. The case was continued after Armstrong's suicide by his wife,
who eventually prevailed.
The cause for the continuing court action was apparently David Sarnoff's
personal animosity toward Armstrong.
I think the Kodak case is quite different, Kodak evidently felt that
Reichenbach had independently invented the nitrocellulose support. Goodwin
might have prevailed much sooner had he had decent representation.
George Eastman's business practices would be considered illegal today,
let alone unethical, but were par for the course in the 1880's. I think it
would be very difficult to prove that he was an evil man.
Those with a further interest in victorian era business practices may be
interested in a new biography of John D. Rockefeller Sr. which has just
been published entitled _Titan_. Can't pull the authors name up from my
memory just now:-(
The Standard Oil trust is almost the grandady of all monopolies. (Leaving
out the Brittish East India Company). Eastman was a piker in comparison.
----
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles,Ca.
dickburk@ix.netcom.com