Though capitalism may often be thought to breed innovation — at least according to one genre of meme — it also brings with it something else: A whole lot of theft. Just as the creators of Monopoly, the windshield wiper, and several other inventors whose ideas were snatched away in pursuit of cold hard cash ... and probably some bragging rights.
From whiskey to an entire animation studio, here are 10 inventions that were actually stolen ideas.
-
1
Long before folks ended friendships, severed familial ties and left their lovers over soured rounds of Monopoly, the classic board game was known as “The Landlord’s Game,” designed by a woman named Elizabeth Magie in 1904. Intended to warn of the dangers of capitalism, Magie learned this lesson the hard way, after her idea was stolen by entrepreneur Charles Darrow.
-
2
“Apple got the idea of a desktop interface from Xerox. Later, Steve Jobs accused Gates of stealing from Apple. Gates said, ‘Well Steve, I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.’”
-
3
“Robert Kearns who invented the Intermittent Windshield Wiper System only to have his invention stolen by the Big 3 auto manufacturers. He then sued and won.”
-
4
“Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green, a slave, taught Jack Daniel how to brew whiskey. He became Daniel's Master Distiller, and is now known as ‘The Godfather of Tennessee Whiskey.’ His son George also became a Master Distiller and some of his descendants STILL work for Jack Daniel's Whiskey to this day.”
-
5
Though Alexander Graham Bell is largely thought to have invented the telephone, several have speculated that he may have stolen the invention from Elisha Gray, citing the similarities between drawings in the pair’s respective notebooks.
-
-
7
“The simultaneous releases of ‘Antz’ and ‘A Bug's Life’ was due to Jeffrey Katzenberg being denied the position of President at Disney, and stealing their idea to start DreamWorks.”
-
8
“Lise Meitner, an Austrian-born physicist, discovered that atomic nuclei can be split in half. She and her nephew explained and named nuclear fission in 1939, but the recognition went to Otto Hahn for this discovery. He was granted a Nobel Prize in 1944 in Chemistry.”
-
9
Once thought to be invented by Isaac Singer of the Singer Corporation, inventor Elias Howe sued over the royalties to the device in a legal battle that lasted from 1849 to 1854. He ultimately won.
-
10
“[Denis Papin], the inventor who first powered a vehicle using steam, had his designs stolen from him, died destitute, and was buried in a pauper's pit.”
-
11
One heralded as the inventor of the radio, inventor Guglielmo Marconi allegedly pulled his design from elements featured in Nikola Tesla's patents.
![“[Denis Papin], the inventor who first powered a vehicle using steam, had his designs stolen from him, died destitute, and was buried in a pauper's pit.”](https://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/2025/01/07/055949/87655184/Screenshot 2025-01-07 at 5.41.03 PM.jpg)
