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This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

You probably all heard that this American life episode called When Patent's Attack about innovations, stifling, tech industry, patents, and patent trolls.

Oh, it's so good. It's so good. If you haven't heard it, you should just go listen to it right now.

Oh, wait.

Let's see what's on the internet.

All right. Now, you don't really have to have heard the TAL show, but it gives an interesting backdrop to what you're about to hear.

Because it's horrible and egregious as patent enforcement and lawsuits are today, they rarely results in murder.

Murder, sir.

But things were different in 1879. That's when a hounded and pursued patent violator struck back and made it possible for average working people to afford quality dentures.

It's a very historically significant murder. I mean, anyone who ever gets dentures, I mean, he's indirectly affected by this crime.

That's John Mar. My name's John Mar. The editor and publisher of the fanzine murder can be fun.

Before the 1850s, dentures were made at a very hard, very painful, and very expensive material like gold or ivory. They were a luxury item.

But the invention of Vulcanite, hard rubber, changed everything. It was moldable. It could be precisely fitted and it was relatively cheap. Everyone began making dentures with Vulcanite.

And these dentures had been overwhelmingly popular. But then in 1864, a long disputed patent application originally filed a dozen years earlier in 1852, was awarded and then acquired by the Good Year Dental Vulcanite Company.

It was a company created to collect fees or very often sue dentists who already used Vulcanite. And there were plenty of dentists to go after.

The person that went after them was named Josiah Bacon, the treasurer of the Good Year Dental Vulcanite Company.

And the Vulcanite Company was trying to collect and Josiah Bacon was trying to personally collect royalties from their patent, from the dentist.

The Good Year Vulcanite Company now monopolized the market. Dents were required to buy their rubber and other contraptions used to make dentures basis from them. And there were heavy taxes and fees associated with all of this. The price just kept going up and up.

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