In 2016 the makers of Jack Daniel's revealed an enslaved person from Africa was instrumental in creating the recipe and method for its famous Tennessee whiskey. For 150 years the formula and process were attributed to the Reverend Daniel Call, a white Lutheran minister from Lynchburg (pictured here holding a guitar). Reverend Call was said to have instructed the young Jasper Newton 'Jack' Daniel on the ins and outs of distilling alcohol.

In reality, a man called Nathan "Nearest" Green, who was actually Call's slave, taught the rooky booze-maker how to produce the drink. Indeed Call is quoted as saying “Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker that I know of”, but Green's achievement was swept under the carpet, and the old Reverend unfairly got the credit. These days, 13.3 million cases of the drink are sold each year and Jack Daniel's is regarded as one of the world's most valuable brands. Last year a new whiskey brand called Uncle Nearest was launched in Tennessee in honour of the real whiskey maestro. There are no known photographs of Nearest Green but pictured is his son George Green (left) sat next to Jack Daniel. 

Leftwing feminist Lizzie Magie invented The Landlord's Game in 1904 to promote the idea of land tax and caution against the perils of land-grabbing, and it was her game that Darrow ripped off and presented to Parker Brothers in 1935, complete with a spelling mistake copied directly from the original. Parker Brothers dodged legal action by acquiring the rights to The Landlord's Game, and 40 years went by before the company admitted Magie was the real brains behind the top-selling title.

The go-to toy for children across the globe, LEGO amassed record revenues of around $5.7 billion (£4.7bn) in 2019. Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder of planet-conquering Danish company, got the idea for his company's trademark bricks in 1946 after he was shown a demo of a plastic moulding machine. The device was churning out plastic bricks designed by British firm Kiddicraft, which launched its Bri-Plax Interlocking Building Cubes in the late 1940s.

Though Christiansen improved on the design, LEGO bricks are basically a copy of Kiddicraft's. The boss of the UK company Hilary Fisher Page died without realising LEGO was potentially infringing on his copyright. Fast forward to 1982 and Lego shrewdly snapped up the rights in Kiddicraft, reached an out-of-court settlement with Page's company, and removed all references to Page and Kiddcraft from its corporate history.

Isaac Merritt Singer is widely credited with inventing the modern sewing machine, and the company that bears his name, which has generated billions of dollars in revenue over the years, is synonymous the world over with the innovation. Except Singer didn't invent the contraption and actually pilfered the design including its key lockstitch component from another sewing machine pioneer, Elias Howe. 

Edison also drew heavily on Joseph Swan's designs for carbon filament electric lighting, which had been published in Scientific American magazine. Given Swan (pictured) had filed a patent for the technology before Edison, the British inventor sued for patent infringement and won. Edison also based aspects of his design on work by American engineer William Sayer, a revelation that eventually prompted the US authorities to cancel his patents.

Marred by shameless backstabbing and alleged plagiarism, Facebook's early days were rocky to say the least. Harvard jocks Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss teamed up with fellow student Divya Narendra in 2002 to create Facebook's precursor, which they named HarvardConnection (later ConnectU). In November 2003 their classmate Mark Zuckerberg was hired to get the social networking site up and running, but unfortunately for them, he had other things on his mind.

Zuckerberg had created a stir on campus the previous summer with a Hot or Not-style site called FaceMash, for which he was nearly expelled. While ostensibly working for the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra, Zuckerberg was actually creating his very own social network, which he launched as thefacebook.com in February 2004, leaving the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra high and dry. Convinced Zuckerberg had plundered their intellectual property they sued, and after a long legal battle walked away with a settlement of $65 million in 2008.

Read more about the Winklevoss twins and their Facebook battle here

Whether Tesla is the true inventor of the technology is open to question, but there's no denying the Serbian-born engineer and futurist provided many of the ideas that enabled Marconi to bring the device to market. Despite the fact Tesla had already been granted patents for basic radio technology in the US in 1900, and Marconi's own patents had been denied because of the overlap, in 1904 the US Patent Office reversed their decision and awarded Marconi a patent for the invention of radio. It is thought that Marconi's strong financial backing was a reason behind the decision. Tesla did try to sue but didn't have the money to contend the case.

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A gamechanging innovation that rocks a myriad of applications, the laser is as lucrative as it is flexible with annual global sales of $14.6 billion (£12.3bn). Columbia University grad student Gordon Gould came up with the first practical way of creating an intense beam of monochromatic light powered by radiation and coined the term "laser" in 1957. But because he lacked a working model, the college physicist thought he wouldn't be able to patent the concept and held off from doing so until 1959.

In the meantime colleagues from his lab had filed their own patents for the technology, clearly having stolen the idea. Gould initiated legal action and fought it out in the courts for an exhausting 30 years. It was worth the long fight however, and in 1987 the rightful inventor of the laser was awarded 48 patents, not to mention millions of dollars in royalties.

Did Alexander Graham Bell really invent the telephone? Italy begs to differ. The country's government proclaimed that Florentine telecoms pioneer Antonio Meucci was the true inventor on his 200th birthday in 2008, and for good reason. In 1871 Meucci showcased his telettrofono innovation and submitted a patent-caveat for the device, several years before Bell, who worked in the same lab, filed his patent.

Meucci attempted to license his telettronfono but was rejected by the likes of the Western Union Telegraph company, and the patent-caveat expired in 1874. If the Italian inventor had stumped up the equivalent of $225 (£185) today's money, chances are Bell wouldn't have received his patent. Meucci did try to sue, but died before the proceedings could be completed.

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