Like the tiny acorn that grows to become a mighty oak, an idea that is protected and properly nourished can grow to become a huge corporation.

It isn't surprising that many of today's corporate giants were founded more than a century ago with intellectual property as the basic building block.

It is a fact that the creative genius of inventors and innovators such as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford was responsible for the formation of many of the successful corporations that are now among the largest in the world.

However, careful research reveals that in many of these success stories, the intellectual property upon which the company was founded was stolen. And often the crime has been covered up by never-ending legal challenges funded by deep-pocketed corporations.

The story of corporate fraud reads like David and Goliath, with the lowly inventor playing the role of David. David won with a slingshot, and the only way that an inventor can win against such corporate Goliaths is with a well-written patent.

Two significant cases will illustrate the need to protect your intellectual property. First, everyone "knows" that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and then proceeded to build the company that became known as American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T).

Few people know that the telephone was actually invented in 1860 by Antonio Meucci — 16 years before Alexander Graham Bell filed for his patent. Despite a public statement by the Secretary of State that "there exists sufficient proof to give priority to Meucci in the invention of the telephone, " and despite the fact

that the United States initiated prosecution for fraud against Bell's patent, the trial was postponed from year to year until the case was dropped when Meucci died in 1896. Justice was finally served more than a century later when Meucci was recognized by Congress as the inventor of the telephone. With this background, it's fair to say that Meucci was the inventor of the telephone and that Bell was the entrepreneur who used his idea to build a great company that provided the best telecommunications system in the world.

Perhaps history's most celebrated legal battle over intellectual property involved native Utahn Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Farnsworth was born in Beaver and attended Brigham Young University for two years before leaving school upon his father's death. He conceived the idea to create what became known as television images using electrons in 1921 when he was just 15. In 1923 an employee of RCA made a patent application for a camera tube that was almost an exact replica of the original sketch drawn by Farnsworth when he was a high school student.

A legal battle ensued with RCA's lawyers contending that their 1923 patent had priority over any of Farnsworth's patents. Eleven years later, in 1934, the U.S. Patent Office rendered its decision, awarding priority of invention to Farnsworth. RCA appealed and lost, but litigation continued for many years until RCA finally agreed to pay Farnsworth royalties. Again, Farnsworth was the inventor, but RCA's David Sarnoff was the entrepreneur who pioneered the television industry.

Unfortunately, neither Meucci nor Farnsworth received either the professional recognition or the financial reward they richly deserved. Inventors must use all legal remedies available to protect and nourish ideas. The effort to protect intellectual property will give it the opportunity to be like the tiny acorn that grows into a mighty oak, and in the process, lets the inventor capitalize on creative genius.