Since when are you afforded a patent on something which you did not at all design or create. Just because you have the expensive instruments to measure, decode, or decipher a substance which has already been created/designed should never give you the authority to "own" that object. This is utterly a FAIL for the research establishment. And now we need the Supreme court to tell us who is the actual owner. Another FAIL for civilization.

There's a class at Univ.Delaware on this very subject, Computer History, which also covers programming these vintage computers. The instructors website is www.vintagecomputer.net