OK so I don't like getting too political but Joe Biden is an absolute dolt and right now he's trying to run for President of the United States and this is one of the lies he most recently told (in a church of all places)

https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-teaches-history-a-black-guy-invented-the-light-bulb-not-a-white-guy-named-edison?%3Futm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-podcast&utm_campaign=andrewklavan

Joe Bidens, nor any others political claims really do not belong here.

But to shift the topic away from politics:

There is patr truth:Incandescent lamp itself was definitely not invented by Edison.
Incandescent lamp was invented way before him.
And it wasnt invented in America at all and it could not be invented by any black guy (there was nothing happening inthis field at that time in Africa either and nowhere else was so big population of black people to make that plausible).


What was invented in Edisons company was the exact design and production technology, which allowed it to become the mass market light source for more than the next century.
And I wrote "in Edisons company" and not "by Edison", because Edison was abig fat a-hole type of boss, stealing all inventions from his workers and publishing it as patents just with his name on them. So only very few inventions related to that "project lightbulb for masses" were at least partially his own and virtually none solely his own without any other contributor.
In fact today it would be a wet dream for any patent lawer to find out key competitor patents are of the same "quality" - it would be a simple letter like "Dear competitor, it came to our attention these key and many other related patents have not listed their true inventors, so are technically invalid. So you either grand us all rights to use them in our products for free, or I will bring this to the courts attention and make them invalid formally. You choose the option. Sincerely your competitors lawer."
So the true inventors of all the "lightbulb for masses" were among Edisons employees, and there very likely were quite a few black people as well, so chances are, some of the inventions really were from black people. But I do't think inventors skin color is of any importance at all. The important thing is, Edison should not be famed for that, mainly because his scientific contribution was limited and it was really overweighted by hem being the invention thief he was.

And no, omitting real inventors or naming people not being the real inventors as "inventors" was illegal and made technically all those patents invalid even in the 2'nd half of 19'th century. Edison may have been the right holder (so the one enjoying the monopoly of using them for products) of most of those patents, but definitely not their invrntor.

Very good point Medved, I have the same experience.  So many of the world’s most powerful patents have been declared void in the past half-century by this method.  It is relatively easy for a competitor to attack a troublesome patent and find eg a disgruntled former employee who played a tiny part in a bigger invention, but whose name was forgotten on the final patent disclosure.  Often this came from corporate policies where inventors are usually given a small financial bonus to thank them for creating IP for the company, but bosses try to limit that to only the key inventors, whereas often quite a big team of people played a role in the invention.  Now we have the opposite extreme to protect them from the lawyers, eg on recent Philips lamp or LED patents you can easily find some with a dozen names listed as inventor.

Often this came from corporate policies where inventors are usually given a small financial bonus to thank them for creating IP for the company, but bosses try to limit that to only the key inventors, whereas often quite a big team of people played a role in the invention.

Well, enforcing the true inventor rule came from the big companies to protect themselves against such bosses, to make sure such bosses wont extinguish all the inventive potential in their subordinates. Because the whole company (and their owners) would be the ones financially suffering the most from that.
Putting too many names is not good either - as a name of someone presented as inventor makes the patent void, if he didnt contributed to the inventive part. Doing verification or other supportive work does not count, anyones name should be linked to at least some part of the invention (part of a claim,...).
But proving this type of wrongdoing is nearly impossible, if all the listed ones cooperate. And they have the strong benefit to do so - because when the patent fails because of this, there is usually no bonus for anyone, so all know better to not complain too much.

Other story is, if a real inventor is omitted - then he has strong motivation to be there and loses nothing by bringing it to the "daylight"...