By his own account, in 2008 Anders Mikkelsen was discussing with Steve Conner the use of mains modulation combined with detuning to change the voltage envelope and get longer arcs. He shared the idea with Steve Ward a few years before the first QCW. He had a bus-modulated SSTC in mind. He had wanted to try it for a while but had no experience with buck converters, and he thinks he may have picked the idea up from Richie Burnett in the first place. Ward got there first, built the modulator with a resonant primary and made it work. Mikkelsen is careful on every point. He is not saying Ward took the idea from him. There was no race, only people sharing ideas, and the prestige of being first was never his main motive. The card records it as the same observation Burnett had documented, made independently in the years between Burnett and Ward, and claims nothing more.
Sources
This is the card from the driver tree, written from what the builder published. Send corrections through the forum.