Does a claim of having invented something really provide you with that much credibility in the market, especially when its patently obvious that the invention was done elsewhere?

Having looked at other industries, its rather common for the 'inventor' to be replaced by newer companies who add efficiencies to the idea and do it rather a lot better.   One could argue that the first airline to pioneer travel to the masses was Pan American, yet they closed their doors in the early 90's, out maneuvered and surpassed by more innovative competitors.   Or take the car, 'invented' by Mercedes Benz, but today are a niche player in todays car industry (albeit a well regarded one) - but few buy a Mercedes Benz because they made the first car.  What is probably more interesting is how Ford revolutionized the car industry with the production line.  

looking back to IT Service Management, there have been many claims over the years to have 'invented' BSM.   BMC software is the most guilty here, which is rather humorous since they were a comparatively late player to that market.    Managed Objects (before the Novell acquisition) were another, yet again, IDC had written about the concept long before MO started doing so.   Is reducing your credibility with these claims worth the added value?  I guess BMC and MO thought that it was.   I wonder how many actually bought because of this.  

What might have been more interesting would have been if BMC made the claim that they had revolutionized the BSM market space.   In reality they probably did.   They took an established market segment (although small at the time) and twisted it to put the Configuration Management Database at the center, and closely align it with the service desk; conveniently the two strengths of BMC.    This focus on CMDB has been to the detriment of the BSM concept, but certainly vital for BMC's sales success over the last few years.   Certainly now the 'what is BSM' discussion is confusing and fraught with religious style debates about the merits of the CMDB, discovery and so on.  

But I wonder if they would have won more Kudos if they had come out and correctly said that they took the CMDB to BSM and how BSM was incomplete without?  (even if in reality making the CMDB the centerpiece of BSM is akin to using a sledgehammer to hang a picture)

Of course none of this really matters and at the end of the day its more of a philosophical debate, but interesting nevertheless.