Plus ça change...
Agree with theModge: this is the way it always works. All credit to ElReg for doing some digging on this and making the mess of 'invention' and/or 'innovation' visible.
A whole bunch of people from many places and organisations are generally involved. There is no epiphany, no eureka by a man in a bathtub (except in historical re-tellings that tend to shave the corners off most of the work, the difficulties, as well as forget most of the people, not to mention the time, involved).
Now, could we all stop with the 'Fathers of Technology' nonsense?? Do we really need to keep creating mythical parents for technology? I, for one, much prefer the intrigue, politics, social and multinational mess that is how we struggle to make standards, infrastructures, and the technologies that form with them. That's where the story is, for me...