The article somewhat misrepresents the Lilienfeld transistor, IMHO. He was awarded a patent for a device that would operate essentially like a MOSFET. But he did not have a handle on the theory behind how such a device would work (no one did yet), and critically he never actually managed to build one (as far as anyone can tell).
FETs are very simple devices to explain, they're very complicated devices to model from first principles, and even harder to manufacture. Simply drawing some pictures of one and filing a patent doesn't really count for much in my book. Though maybe that's not surprising given that the source is a rag called "ipwatchdog"...
If the idea is novel and not something an ordinary mechanic can come up with, that's eminently patentable; Watt didn't have to build a working two-chamber steam engine to get his patent, I don't believe. All the rest of what it takes to actually build it is patentable too, if it isn't obvious. That opportunity isn't lost.
He invented the glider, IF he was first (but this is unlikey, the paper airplane may extend nearly as far back as paper, as toy hot air ballons do - in China.) Nobody invented all transistors, nor all aircraft, but it's reasonable to give the Wrights special attention.
The problem is that everything useful has either showed or stopped scaling. For example, at 10nm (7nm for TSMC) we're getting an ungodly number of logic gates, but sram cell size scaling and Dennard scaling, two things we actually care about have slowed. Similarly, the cost of data movement hasn't come down much.
So 3d transistors and graphene transistors won't help all too much. And besides, FinFET s are basically a form of 3d transistors.
FETs are very simple devices to explain, they're very complicated devices to model from first principles, and even harder to manufacture. Simply drawing some pictures of one and filing a patent doesn't really count for much in my book. Though maybe that's not surprising given that the source is a rag called "ipwatchdog"...