The 1997 EFF award was given to both inventors. The 2014 Hall of Fame induction honored both inventors. But the documentary was called Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, not a dual biography, and most of the journalism generated by the documentary’s release centered on Lamarr. Antheil appears, in that coverage, as a supporting character in her story rather than as a principal in a shared story.
He was a principal in a shared story. The patent says so. The technical mechanism says so. His own account, in Bad Boy of Music, says so. He described Lamarr as “very, very bright,” and his admiration was genuine. But he also described his own contribution with the matter-of-fact precision of someone who knew what he had brought to the table. He knew that the player-piano synchronization was his insight. He knew that without that specific technical solution, there was no patent.
The accurate account of this invention gives him sustained credit, not because it is more generous to the less famous inventor, but because it is more accurate.
## The Patent Expired on Time
The expiration of US Patent 2,292,387 on August 11, 1959 — seventeen years to the day from its grant — is not a dramatic event in the conventional sense. Patent expiration is a routine legal occurrence. But in this case, the timing carries a certain weight.
George Antheil died on February 12, 1959, six months before the expiration. He died without having seen the technology deployed, without having received any royalty from its use, and without having received any public recognition of the invention beyond a New York Times article in 1941 that omitted his name. He died having contributed something real and consequential to a conversation that was already happening without him.