John von Neumann did something similar for general purpose computers. He widely circulated a report detailing the EDVAC design [1] for a full year before the others on the design team could file a patent and now we have the ubiquitous "von Neumann architecture" [2].


1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_the_EDVAC#Controversy
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_architecture