MINI-CASE: NEVER ASK PERMISSION TO INNovATE ain 1956, a small American company invented a device called the "Hush-a-Phone'. lt was a plastic cup designed to be attached to the microphone end of a telephone handset in order to facilitate telephone conversations in noisy environments rather like cupping your hand over the phone. When Hush-a-Phone appeared on the market, AT&T-then the monopolistic supplier of telephone services to the US public objected, on the grounds that it was a crime to attach to the phone system any device not expressly approved by AT&T. Hush-a- Phone had not been thus approved. The Federal Communications Commission agreed with AT&T. The fact that the device in no way "connected' with the network was neither here nor there. Hush-a- Phone was history