She knew the patent mattered. She knew it for fifty-five years before the EFF agreed with her formally. She said “It’s about time” when she heard. She did not say she was surprised.
## A Final Word on the Two Names
Patent US 2,292,387 lists Hedy Kiesler Markey first and George Antheil second. This ordering is conventional — alphabetical by first name — and does not imply greater or lesser contribution. It happens to have shaped how the story was told: she comes first on the document, and in the public imagination that followed the EFF award and the documentary, she came first in the narrative as well.
The patent does not support a reading in which one inventor was primary and the other secondary. The technical mechanism at the heart of the patent — the synchronized paper strips, the constant-speed clock motors, the pneumatic control head — derives from Antheil’s experience with player pianos. The identification of the military problem — radio jamming of torpedo guidance — derives from Lamarr’s knowledge of the arms industry. Neither contribution is a dependent of the other. Both were necessary.
A patent requires both a problem and a solution. Lamarr brought the problem. Antheil brought the solution. Together they produced a document that described, for the first time in a legally detailed form, the concept of synchronized frequency hopping as a defense against radio jamming in weapons guidance.
George Antheil, June 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959.
Hedy Kiesler Markey, November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000.
Inventors. Co-inventors. Both names belong on the document. Both names belong in the story.