Famously innovative does not to me imply most innovative. The article certainly did not make the case. The link at the bottom gives evidence to lead one away from your conclusion.

All a monopoly gets you is to have the innovation under one roof. Radio is a fine example of what happens when you have real competition instead of patents driving innovation. Instead of AT&T's multi-decade stagnation we had extremely rapid advance in technology in 20 years.

Of course we really can't rewind the clock, eliminate the monopoly/gov't funding and see how things might of panned out. You might enjoy Terence Kealey on this topic: http://vimeo.com/4798314