The first patent battle occurred when Mauchly and Eckert were asked to sign over the ENIAC patent to Pennsylvania University. Their refusal cast a shadow over their academic careers and caused them to leave the university, according to Reed.

Mauchly and Eckert then started their own business, the Electronic Control Company, and built the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC), which was the first machine to store data on magnetic tape rather than on punched cards.

The Electronic Control Company soon became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and BINAC was followed by the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC), the first computer to be produced commercially in the United States. Forty-six UNIVACs were built. In fact, the very first UNIVAC was built for the U.S. Census Bureau
the ENIAC patent was invalid, because it was filed a year after the computer had gone into public use and because ENIAC was derived in part from the work of John V. Atanasoff at Iowa State University.
Wired News: Sad End to Computing's Inventor: "'He was a person overflowing with creativity and (the) inventor of the most revolutionary tool of the century,' said Reed of his grandfather. 'How could he end up uncompensated for his years of labor, his patent lost, and as a final insult, discredited as being the inventor?'
'Because we have an adversarial court system, that's why,' said Reed. 'It is all about winning, so if you are an inventor, you had better team up with someone who is cunning and vicious. Society will compensate only those who have the power to demand it.'
John Mauchly, with J. Presper Eckert, were the inventors of the 'Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer' (ENIAC), widely considered to be the world's first electronic general-purpose computer"