Sure the ideas go away away back - but most people had given up on neural nets after the initial excitement, and sure others were also working on it - however the difference for me is he used it to solve real world interesting problems - and by showing what was possible - that ignited the resurgence.

Now you could argue that the people in the 60's and 70's didn't have the compute available to make non-toy networks, and it was only applying the same techniques on bigger datasets with more compute that was the real difference.

Sure - but that happens all the time in science - every innovation is building on the shoulders of others and the assignment of the Nobel prize is as a result often rather arbitrary.

Also don't underestimate the value of reducing to practice - the difference between coming up with an idea and actually making it work in practice.