> Antheil and Lamarr never received a penny for their work <
That seemed very unfair. So I just looked it up. Antheil and Lamarr donated their patent to the U.S. Navy.
Respect to them. Not every hero wears a uniform.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-hopping_spread_spectrum#
Ii’m old enough to remember WW2, in fact I was listening to the radio while mom, dad, and a guest couple ate Sunday Dinner (midday back then). I heard Roosevelt’s voice saying “We are at war” and rushed into the dining room to tell the adults. Of course the entire country listened to radio news every night. Totally aware what war meant.
Very clear memories of that fateful day. Dad had taught me to read at 4. Picked up picked up novel “Dwarf’s Blood” to read while waiting for adults to finish meal. Probably thought it was a kid’s book. Bought a copy on eBay a few years ago.
> Antheil and Lamarr never received a penny for their work <
I’m an electrical engineer and have served as an expert witness in patent litigation. In my work, I’ve actually encountered and read that patent. The idea was too far ahead of its time and could not be implemented with the technology of the day. If you look at the figure, the memory device is a spool of paper tape with holes punched in it. In the day the electronics was all vacuum tubes. Rather impractical for a torpedo. Had to wait for the transistor and integrated circuits for the invention to be practical. The term of a protection for a patent at that time was 17 years so it probably expired before anyone could actually use it.
As a side note, the US started WW II with the Mark 14 torpedo which had multiple technical problems. These were caused by the highly restrictive military budgets between the war. In WW II our Navy went to war with a torpedo that had never been live fired at an actual target!!