[inforoots] Eckert ENIAC Interview

[Bob Zeidman]

Hi Hans,
 
The information in the book includes some of the court transcripts and the
judge's decision, which are public and can be researched yourself. The facts
actually are that easy. I work as an expert witness in patent litigation. I
can tell you that if there was a single shred of evidence in Mauchly's
favor, it would have been uncovered in litigation because the stakes are
very high high and because the investigators that are hired, lawyers and
experts, are the best available in the world. Not a single piece of evidence
in Mauchly's favor was uncovered in the five years of the case. This
particular patent case was perhaps the most important and potentially
lucrative one in history -- imagine if Sperry owned the patent for the
digital computer and was paid a royalty for each one produced. Sperry spent
many millions of dollars to support its case, trying over many years to
uncover a single document, prototype, or witness that Mauchly had a single
thought about digital computers before meeting Atanasoff. It doesn't take
much, either. Remember that Alexander Graham Bell proved his case by finding
notes on the back of an envelope that was a love letter to his future wife.
Sperry, its lawyers, it investigators, and its experts found nothing.
 
Also, you ask for an unbiased research. Mollenhoff is a Pulitzer Prize
winning reporter with no connection to Atanasoff. Why do you assume he's
biased unless it's because you don't like his conclusion?
 
Regards,
-Bob
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.computerhistory.org/pipermail/inforoots/attachments/20060222/753a16c4/attachment.html