This article has a striking absence, that being the name "John Atanasoff"[0], whose electronic digital calculator was seen and examined by Mauchly in 1941, and who spoke to Mauchly multiple times during the years when ENIAC was being built.

It was this connection that ultimately blocked Eckert and Mauchly from patenting the idea of the digital computer.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff#Patent_...