While the point-contact transistor has been patented by Bardeen and Brattain, "invent" is not the most appropriate word because they have discovered experimentally by sheer luck the transistor effect between two point contacts, without having any prior idea that their experiments will result in such an effect.
The Bell Labs team was indeed searching how to make a semiconductor triode (the word transistor has been coined after the discovery of the point-contact transistor).
However they had expected that they would find a method to make a device similar to the metal-semiconductor or metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors that had been invented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and 1928 (Lilienfeld had never succeeded to make them reproducibly, because by his time the role of impurities in semiconductors was not understood, so he was not aware about the extreme requirements for fabricating reproducible semiconductor devices).
Moreover, Shockley cannot have kept "secret" the bipolar junction transistor invented by him, except perhaps for at most a few weeks, if he had felt any reason to verify his computations before making them public, to be certain that his new theory is correct.
Less than half of year after the discovery of the transistor effect by Bardeen and Brattain, both Bardeen with Brattain and Shockley have filed almost simultaneously 2 patents, for their transistors. As normal, the patents have been assigned to the Bell Labs and the filings must have been prepared some time before that, together with the legal department of the company.
In the real timeline there is no time left for "secrecy". Shockley certainly has not kept any useful information for himself, because the theory published by him almost immediately is what has taught the first few generations of engineers specializing in semiconductor devices, leading to an explosive growth of the industry.
The BJT invented by Shockley has been the basis of the semiconductor industry, while the point-contact transistor has remained a historical curiosity. Point-contact transistors have been used for a few years only because the first junction transistors were too big, so they could not be used at radio frequencies. However the size problem has been solved quickly, so the use of point-contact transistors has been abandoned.
The only reason why the discovery of the transistor effect in point-contact transistors is important is because this has made Shockley think about which is the cause of the transistor effect, making him develop his theory that he has published very soon, first in abbreviated form in 1949 in the "Bell System Technical Journal", then in 1950 in his book "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors".
Now when Shockley is mentioned everybody first comments that even if he has been a genius physicist in other aspects he was a stupid human being. Both aspects are of course true and it is not at all unusual for humans to do both very good things and very bad things. However his stupidity did not really have any harmful effects, besides many people feeling insulted by him, while his theoretical work, which has taught so many engineers how to do their jobs, remains a really important heritage, which has greatly contributed to human progress.
The Bell Labs team was indeed searching how to make a semiconductor triode (the word transistor has been coined after the discovery of the point-contact transistor).
However they had expected that they would find a method to make a device similar to the metal-semiconductor or metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect transistors that had been invented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925 and 1928 (Lilienfeld had never succeeded to make them reproducibly, because by his time the role of impurities in semiconductors was not understood, so he was not aware about the extreme requirements for fabricating reproducible semiconductor devices).
Moreover, Shockley cannot have kept "secret" the bipolar junction transistor invented by him, except perhaps for at most a few weeks, if he had felt any reason to verify his computations before making them public, to be certain that his new theory is correct.
Less than half of year after the discovery of the transistor effect by Bardeen and Brattain, both Bardeen with Brattain and Shockley have filed almost simultaneously 2 patents, for their transistors. As normal, the patents have been assigned to the Bell Labs and the filings must have been prepared some time before that, together with the legal department of the company.
In the real timeline there is no time left for "secrecy". Shockley certainly has not kept any useful information for himself, because the theory published by him almost immediately is what has taught the first few generations of engineers specializing in semiconductor devices, leading to an explosive growth of the industry.
The BJT invented by Shockley has been the basis of the semiconductor industry, while the point-contact transistor has remained a historical curiosity. Point-contact transistors have been used for a few years only because the first junction transistors were too big, so they could not be used at radio frequencies. However the size problem has been solved quickly, so the use of point-contact transistors has been abandoned.
The only reason why the discovery of the transistor effect in point-contact transistors is important is because this has made Shockley think about which is the cause of the transistor effect, making him develop his theory that he has published very soon, first in abbreviated form in 1949 in the "Bell System Technical Journal", then in 1950 in his book "Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors".
Now when Shockley is mentioned everybody first comments that even if he has been a genius physicist in other aspects he was a stupid human being. Both aspects are of course true and it is not at all unusual for humans to do both very good things and very bad things. However his stupidity did not really have any harmful effects, besides many people feeling insulted by him, while his theoretical work, which has taught so many engineers how to do their jobs, remains a really important heritage, which has greatly contributed to human progress.