Innovation nation: From the airplane to the lightbulb — big, bright ideas have always thrived in the Land of the Free

Edison launched numerous legal battles against electricity rival George Westinghouse and other competitors. Samuel Morse's telegraph patent defense reached the Supreme Court, where he lost in a controversial 1854 decision. Alexander Graham Bell's 1875 telephone patent faced challenges when another inventor submitted similar designs the same day, but Bell ultimately prevailed after years of litigation. Experts now worry innovation is stymied by litigation-choked "patent thickets" involving smartphones' 250,000 patents.