John von Neumann did something similar for general purpose computers by widely circulating the report on EDVAC [1] before the others on the design team could patent it. Because it was circulating publicly for a full year before a patent was filed, it could no longer be patented and we now have the prevalent “von Neumann” architecture.

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