The patent office called it a BETA 3000 NMR SCANNING DEVICE
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/opla/term/156.html If you click on the patent number, it confirms the patent was granted in 1974. If he filed in 1972, that means he had a scanning device in place prior to 1973. I am willing to concede that there should be shared contribution to the technology involved and that several folks apparently were doing similar research at one time. Just don't dismiss this scientist as a "crank". He is worthy of some respect for his contributions. 1977 was when he built the MRI scanner. It is within the realm of probability that he indeed did have MRI technology prior to 1973.
All that means is that one element of the technology used in the scanner is covered by the patent. As I've said (and I've posted the link before; I'll find it in my own posts tomorrow) Damadian has admitted that Lauterbur came up with imaging first. Damadian did some important discoveries in medical NMR, but he did not invent imaging, and in his attempts to grab credit for Lauterbur's discovery, he's done a huge injustice to Lauterbur. As I said - go look in the 1972 patent, and see if there's any claim to a new imaging method.
Damadian succeeds at this by making a pest of himself. If he or his lawyers see a publication or web page giving credit to Lauterbur, he send them a letter demanding he get co-billing. Lauterbur's a solitary scientist working at U., Illinois; he doesn't have the time or resources to wage the kind of war Damadian is waging.
As Nebullis posted, the people in the field, who actually know what happened, give credit to Lauterbur for the idea, and Ernst for the most practial way of implementing it.
All this may seem petty, but the controversy, which really isn't a controversy in the NMR community, has deprived Lauterbur of the Nobel Prize he almost certainly would have won for the invention. Damadian is a rich man, who was scooped on a major invention and has used his cash to bully the guy who beat him. If I were looking for a Christian role model, it wouldn't be he.