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It would be nice to believe that if one is first as an inventor, fame and riches will flow automatically. Unfortunately, the truth is that the early stages of a major new technology commonly involve bitter and disruptive fights over money and credit for the innovation. Such struggles can have large consequences and do not always result in a win by the inventor.

For example, based on patent language, the Wright brothers sued and battled in the press against Glenn Curtiss for his use of ailerons as an alternative control mechanism to the wing-warping favored by the Wrights. The ensuing business turmoil tarnished the Wright's legacy, impaired the US aviation industry in its formative period, and prompted federal intervention and a forced settlement during WW I.

Similarly, Thomas Edison was in many ways less an inventor than a patent troll backed by rapacious Wall Street mercenaries. And there is good reason to regard Alexander Graham Bell as not the inventor of the telephone but the thief of brilliant pioneering work by impoverished Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci. He sued Bell and was nearing victory in court when he died in 1889 and the legal action was extinguished. Bell thus got the credit and the money that rightfully belonged to Meucci.

Nicolai Tesla offers perhaps the most famous example of an inventor done wrong. Tesla's patents for radio issued in 1900 and were foundational to the field, leading to US Patent Office rejection of Marconi's rival claims. Marconi though forged ahead, gaining attention and advancing the field through practical demonstrations. He also raised a great deal of money from influential English and American investors.

Without adequate reason and in circumstances that hint at corruption, in 1904 the US Patent Office reversed itself, voided Tesla's radio patents, and approved Marconi's patents. Almost four decades later, a few months after Tesla died, the US Supreme Court ruled that his radio patents were valid. Marconi's fame remains undisturbed though, cemented in history by a Nobel Prize award in 1911 that Tesla arguably deserved instead.

These kinds of cautionary tales for inventors can be easily added to by anyone willing to endure reading business histories and patent cases. Much of Rossi's odd and frustrating behavior seems due to typical inventor paranoia, with the need to gain publicity and attract investors and commercial allies at odds with an even more compelling urge to maintain secrecy until fame and wealth as an inventor are assured.

I surmise that Rossi's innovation is for real. If so, then the issuance of his patent will do much to spur its commercial development. He and his partners would surely deserve fame, success, and wealth if they have cracked the puzzle of how to make cold fusion work even before its physics are accepted and understood. If so, they will help inspire a wave of innovations that press against and expand the boundaries of science.