ZI’m sure the Exide people deliberately suppress the 100 year battery for short-term profit;such behavior is typical business. Buy out the competition and then shut down the product has happened many times.
It is why a real patent reform that would void any patent simply held or hoarded and patenents and copyrights would expire after the limited time of as originmally set up,that is, within a decade or two of the grant.
I cannot argue one iota on your opinion regarding patents. A patent was not intended to deprive the world a product or invention but to give an inventor a chance to profit from the invention before it could be produced by anyone else.
Given the pluses of the Edison Battery I would think it would be a great jumping off point for electric vehicles until something better came down the pike. It is proven, less toxic, much longer lasting, less susceptible to damage via over/under charging, less weight than lead acid.
Exide could only have bought a patent on a method of manufacturing as I do not believe a battery from 1900 could be still protected by a patent. If I put on a tin foil hat I could imagine battery manufactures conspiring to NOT manufacture a 100 year battery.