According to the Wikipedia article on movable type [1], it existed long before Gutenberg, in East Asia. It seems like Gutenberg's contribution was to introduce

According to the Wikipedia article on movable type [1], it existed long before Gutenberg, in East Asia. It seems like Gutenberg's contribution was to introduce some additional innovations and popularize it in Europe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type