[Rockingham]

Just how did Hedy Lamar's patent become "foundational to modern Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS." Did the researchers for those innovations get stumped and then come across Lamar's patent and apply its idea to their work? I doubt that. The patent has been spun into a "just so" story that is unconnected from the facts and distorts how technological innovations come about.

By way of analogy, did the Jules Verne story of a rocket to the Moon launched from Florida lead to the development of the V-2 and our Moon landing program? Did Hitler read Jules Verne and then tell von Braun to make me a bunch of those to bombard London? Did the US Congress decide on a Florida launch site for our manned space program because key people had read Jules Verne?

No, what actually happened is that the hard facts of physics, the state of science and technology, and demands of an era guide new developments. Verne and Lamar may be said to have anticipated some technical aspects far in the future. That is a more modest claim for them but still worthy of note.

[Merrick]

No, that’s not fair. Verne had a fantastical idea for a story. Hedy developed and patented an actual technology and yes multiband frequency-hopping comms is part of those modern implementations. Hedy had the patent.