Thomas Edison – Inventor of the Light Bulb?

I began to research the history of patents and stumbled upon some interesting facts:
· Thomas Edison (U.S. Inventor) had 1,093 U.S. patents, including a few in Germany, France and the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Edison_patents
· Edison was granted a patent for the Incandescent Lamp in January, 1880 (U.S. Patent #223,898).
· Joseph Swan (British Physicist and Chemist) held British patents for Incandescent Lamps. His inventions and patents were also completed around 1880, and were in direct competition with Edison.
· Donald Weder (Floral Designer from Highland, IL) has 1,321 U.S. patents. These patents are in the floral business. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Donald+&FIELD1=INNM&co1=AND&TERM2=Weder&FIELD2=INNM&d=PTXT
· Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese Inventor) has 2,231 registered U.S patents (plus a few more prior to 1976. His patents are in the field of computer science. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=In%2F%22Yamazaki%2C+Shunpei%22&d=PTXT

There is much written about Thomas Edison and his works, including reference to his invention of the Incandescent Lamp. There is also a bit of controversy over who invented the lamp first – Swan or Edison. In actuality, there were numerous early inventions leading up to 1880 (for details see the following link): http://www.unmuseum.org/lightbulb.htm

Apparently, both Swan and Edison were involved in a patent infringement case for rights to this invention. The following article explains why Edison is given credit for this invention: http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/bios/swan.htm