Marconi and later RCA held so many radio patents that practically every radio sold in the U.S. had a sticker listing the licensed patents.
There have been engineering breakthroughs by "little guys" who didn't have the money to hire patent lawyers and ,or hire more lawyers to enforce their patent rights against big unethical corporations.
Some of the garage engineers settled for modest recognition of seeing their invention publicized in hobbyist or company magazines and newsletters.They were the "linux" of engineers.
