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The Courts Government News Science Technology

Blue LED Inventor Nakamura Awarded $8.1 Million 306

Posted by timothy from the least-they-could-do dept.
redkingca writes "The New York Times (reg required) has an article about an $8.1 million settlement in the blue-LED royalty case. Mr. Nakamura created the blue LED while working for the Nichia Corporation but never received any bonuses or royalties for his invention. A lower court had awarded 20 billion yen, nearly $200 million, and ordered Nichia to pay Mr. Nakamura last year. The settlement came after the company appealed that ruling."
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Blue LED Inventor Nakamura Awarded $8.1 Million More

Blue LED Inventor Nakamura Awarded $8.1 Million

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  • A great acheivement (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lindsay Lohan ( 847467 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @12:55PM (#11337389) Homepage Journal
    Mr. Nakamura created the blue LED... A lower court had awarded 20 billion yen, nearly $200 million
    Nice cut for a sweet invention--one that will change laser technology forever. Gallium Nitride LEDs have started to replace lightbulbs and fluorescent tubes for lighting. GaN based blue lasers allow data storage with much higher density than traditional red lasers, and there are many more application areas.

    Here's an interesting article [sciencewatch.com] from ScienceWatch (no bloodsucking reg required) which goes into more detail on the history and application of this *very* cool technology.

    • Is this for real? (Score:4, Funny)

      by NeoSkink ( 737843 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @12:59PM (#11337459)
      A first post, on Slashdot, that is actually interesting/informative? Nah! It must be a trick...

      Or is this a sign of the comming apocalypse?
    • Nice cut for a sweet invention

      Not really, 8 million is a pittance compared to the revenues that Nichia Corporation realizes ( approximately 1.4 billion dollars) every year because of Mr. Nakamura's invention. They should have offered him at least $100 million in stock and/or bonuses.

      • Re:A great acheivement (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fm6 ( 162816 )
        Developing a new technology isn't cheap. If you believe in capitalism, you have to accept that the people who take the financial risks are usually going to get the lion's share of the rewards. Otherwise they have no incentive to take those risks.

        What was unfair was that the inventor of a crucial new technology was only rewarded with a pat on the back. And now that's been corrected.

  • Hooray for the little guy! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lordkuri ( 514498 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @12:56PM (#11337413)
    It's nice to see "the little guy" get one over on the "anything you think, we own" mentality of the big corporations. Produce a product on company time, yeah that's work for hire, but this bullshit of "you made X 3 years after you left the company, but we still own it" has to stop.

    • He was working for them at the time (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:01PM (#11337499) Homepage Journal
      It's nice to see "the little guy" get one over on the "anything you think, we own" mentality of the big corporations. Produce a product on company time, yeah that's work for hire, but this bullshit of "you made X 3 years after you left the company, but we still own it" has to stop.

      He was working for the company, on company time, at the companys direction (after he asked the company president to be assigned to do work on blue lasers), using company equipment. The guy who invented the Flourescent lightbulb for GE didn't get as much as the company initially offered this guy.
      • my statement was more of a general rant about the practice of that. I realize it doesn't really apply *in this case* but the rant itself is still valid I think ;)
      • In actual fact, the company tried for several years to abandon the line of research that eventually lead to his breakthrough, in favour of pursuing the same methods that other researchers had completely failed to get working.

        Not to mention that he also spent his own money on some of the equipment used.

        On top of which the company offered him a $200 "bonus" for his patent, which is estimated to be worth $1.2 billion to the company (in profit).
      • "He was working for the company, on company time, at the companys direction (after he asked the company president to be assigned to do work on blue lasers), using company equipment."

        And so? He still won. After all, in the U.S., the only thing that matters is winning. That's how corporations got the "if you invent it, it's ours" expectation: they won in court.

        Apparently, custom and law is different in Japan than in the U.S.

        "The guy who invented the Flourescent lightbulb for GE didn't get as much as the co
        • This is what bothers me about corporate greed. People do things that make their company BILLIONS of dollars, and don't get compensated. You'd think that if someone got a few million for every invention that makes a company a few billion, they'd be that much more motivated to come up with amazing new things.

          I have a friend who managed to catch an accounting error that saved the company millions of dollars. He didn't even get a BONUS that year. If I were the CEO and I found out an employee saved us millions,
          • "Don't corporate managers see the need to reward employees for their hard work?"

            Sure, they get to keep their job instead of seeing it outsourced to the Philippines.

            Chuck
          • This is what bothers me about corporate greed
            So individual greed is better? The company invests alot money and takes the risk in these inventions, lab space, equipment, materials, and salary are not free. For every one successful product, there are dozens of failed products. Further, the invention itself doesn't instantly net dollars, it requires further millions of investment to develop manufacturing techniques and capacity as well as marketing.
            If your job is to invent things, you get salary to invent
            • I liked the idea in an earlier post saying that "if a company makes 3b on an invention, why not kick down a couple million to the person who created it" which I'm sure this would apply to a team who invented something as well.

              Afterall, in the corporate vs. individual greed I figured, why shouldn't individual greed win out. Corporate greed means people make less, are less appreciated, and therefore less happy, thus they don't come up with the things they may have come up with and this affects the company n
          • I have a friend who managed to catch an accounting error that saved the company millions of dollars. He didn't even get a BONUS that year. If I were the CEO and I found out an employee saved us millions, I'd at least drop him a $50,000 bonus check or something, since the money wouldn't be there at all if he hadn't caught it.

            He should write a letter to the company's customers and investors describing how the company leaves critical accounting bug finding to luck and the goodwill of unpaid (unrewarded) work

          • Re:He was working for them at the time (Score:4, Insightful)

            by T-Ranger ( 10520 ) <jeffwNO@SPAMchebucto.ns.ca> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @04:08PM (#11340007) Homepage
            The flip side of that is that if you, as an employee does something that causees the company to loose money, they are not going to go after you for the difference.
        • Maybe a wave of innovation will now sweep Japan's R&D labs. The kids can make some bucks now. Maybe we should be turnin' Japanese, I really think so.

          As we can see from this case, the sense of honor still survives in Japanese society, whereas it has long since left American society.
    • So if you consider that he worked for the company at the time does your opinion change?

      The problem here is that he has set the precedent that your salary is if you do nothing; if you invent something cool, you sue the company to get MORE. The result will be money to lawyers and those whose ethical standards lead them to freely sue their employer... lowering salaries generally (as companies hold back reserves to handle these situations). This will take money away from the consistent and average employee.

      • Re:What an awful precedent, though (Score:5, Informative)

        by BJH ( 11355 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:22PM (#11337792)
        Please note that under Japanese law, there is a provision for employees to be compensated for exceptional performance (which I would hope few people would deny was true of Nakamura's discovery).

        So his lawsuit was based on a legal requirement for the company to pay him fairly.
        • Please note that under Japanese law, there is a provision for employees to be compensated for exceptional performance (which I would hope few people would deny was true of Nakamura's discovery).

          BJH, Interesting. Thanks for the correction.

          Here [ipww.com] is one article for people who don't want to do the digging into how Japanese patent law works.

          and Here is a white paper [foley.com] that suggests some changes to the law (which really don't seem to solve the ambiguity any!). This second one also talks about British law and

      • I work for a large company that owns my ideas, but they (officially) will give me a percentage of profit from things that I come up with.
      • The problem here is that he has set the precedent that your salary is if you do nothing; if you invent something cool, you sue the company to get MORE.

        I DO work for a large company who owns my inventions, I DO have patents in my name but assigned to my employer

        Once upon a time there was a man whose job it was to put a cog on a spoke and hit it with a hammer. All day long. He was paid hourly to swing the hammer. After years of doing this, he realized that if the cog was replaced by a widget, the devi

      • Re:What an awful precedent, though (Score:5, Insightful)

        by oobob ( 715122 ) * on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @02:21PM (#11338586)
        The problem here is that he has set the precedent that your salary is if you do nothing; if you invent something cool, you sue the company to get MORE.

        So are you honestly suggesting that the salaried employees that bring in millions of dollars with their inventions or solve particularly difficult problems should be paid the same as those who aren't profitable at all or stick to the routine? What about the executives who are paid millions based on the performance of the company? We compensate executives of big corporations based on how the company performs, and we vary their pay wildly, to the tune of several million dollars, depending on how they do. Why are people so willing to accept that hard work and results should only be grossly rewarded when performed by executives? People keep saying that the company provides the capital for the R and D and takes the risks to bring it to market. How did they get this capital? Osmosis? It was either through the investments of venture capitalists or through previous products developed by the same people we're talking about. And if it was from venture capitalists, the company is likely relatively new, and breakthrough inventions that earn a profit should be rewarded, as they're a big reason why the company will see another year. Does anyone here honestly think that executive ability is the only ability worthy of millions of dollars?

        Please keep in mind I DO work for a large company who owns my inventions, I DO have patents in my name but assigned to my employer, and I WON'T sue my company even if they make millions from it and I don't see a dime... they compensated me for that time and effort - that's what my salary is.

        They taught you that nonsense about salary and compensation so the executives could keep your cut. I read another post that said the CEO gave a press conference saying that real researchers do their jobs for the joy of technical achievement. Do executives do their jobs for the joy of fiscal discipline? Does it bother you that your time and effort, no matter how productive or brilliant, is worth shit unless you're an executive? And does it surprise you that the people paid the most are the ones who manage the money?

        I thought that in capitalism, we reward those with harder jobs who perform well because otherwise "no one would do them." Why are we rewarding one type of hard work and not the other? Why is it that culturally, we reward people who run companies or appear on our newly invented hi-def TV screens screens, but we don't reward the people who make any of this technology possible? I'd like to thank you, though. I now know that if I end up in a corporate job, I should only surrender my mundane ideas to those greedy fucks.

        To you my fellow youngings: stick to the university life. The university of Iowa just changed their patent and staff invention compensation plan because it was percieved as being unfair among the professors. They changed it so that the inventor recieves all of the first $100,000 of profit (or something like that). Here's how horrible it was (they also mention that change):

        Adding to the benefits for researchers is the chance for profit. The university splits licensing revenue four ways - 25 percent to inventors, 25 percent to their departments, 25 percent to a fund advancing university research, and 25 percent to UI Research Foundation - but a new plan the UI Staff Council passed on Thursday would allocate them an additional $100,000.

        That's worth the extra school.

        • I thought that in capitalism, we reward those with harder jobs who perform well because otherwise "no one would do them." Why are we rewarding one type of hard work and not the other? Why is it that culturally, we reward people who run companies or appear on our newly invented hi-def TV screens screens, but we don't reward the people who make any of this technology possible? I'd like to thank you, though. I now know that if I end up in a corporate job, I should only surrender my mundane ideas to those greed

      • You are quite the dumbass then. The salary is to pay you for your day to day work. The salary does not cover going way beyond the basics and coming up with a whole new profit portfolio for the company.

        The company ethically owes you 10% of the value.
  • Now give some money to this guy [slashdot.org] too, and we're square.

  • Man... that's harsh. Good for Nakamura tho (Score:3, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @12:58PM (#11337453) Homepage Journal
    My dad worked for decades for one of the largest corporations in the world, as an engineer and developed many things which were patented by the company. He got to hang the patent on the office wall, but got little if any compensation for it.. the view being that his salary was the compensation he'd agreed to under the terms of his employment. Inventing things was part of his job.

    About 10 years ago a friend took another stance and left an employer after they patented his (very profitable) invention and licensed it, but gave him no bonus for it (the product incidental to their core competency.) He started his own consulting company and keeps all his IP now.

    • But does he keep the IP of *his* employees?


    • Re:Man... that's harsh. Good for Nakamura tho (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:06PM (#11337566) Journal
      Morale could be helped a lot by sharing the wealth and kudos. It does not help if a company earns 50 million off of an employee's idea, but only gives him/her a T-shirt. What message does that send to employees? At least give the inventor a nice fat bunus. Some people and companies are just so fucking greedy that it blows the mind. Their greed is beyond rationality. If you want yet another 50-million invention to come along, then share the wealth a bit to prime the pump for the next idea. Otherwise you are just biting the hand that feeds your greed.
      • I totally agree. and the monetary rewards the employees are seaking arnt that great. so this guy got $200 Million. if the company had given this guy $10 Million, $20Million... wich is still almost more than he could spend in a lifetime i bet he would have been tinkled pink.
      • I agree. When executives do stuff like pay Kary Mullis $10,000 for an invention that earns the company $300 Million, they dishonor themselves. Now Japanese companies tend to have very flat rates of compensation-however what they could easily do is make sure that folks that generate valuable inventions get early retirement and/or cushy jobs like appointments as a lifetime "fellow"(i.e. a chance to do what they want with the rest of their lives).

        I don't think it is just greed here though. I honestly think t

      • Well, I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with you. Personally, I'd side with the scientist/engineer on instinct.

        BUT...

        If I invented something like this and my employer handed me $10 million (or more), I might not stick around.

        Even if I wanted to continue doing research...with $10 million I can do my research on my own terms...and keep the riches from any future inventions to myself. Of course, for some types of research $10 million may not actually be enough to do your own research. So maybe tha

    • Re:Man... that's harsh. Good for Nakamura tho (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @02:41PM (#11338865)
      My dad worked for decades for one of the largest corporations in the world, as an engineer and developed many things which were patented by the company. He got to hang the patent on the office wall, but got little if any compensation for it..

      It's still that way in most American corporations from what I can see. At my job, the management is constantly talking about how we need to put out more patents, and how important intellectual property is. To give us incentive, we get a whopping $100 for filing a patent, and an enormous $1000 if the patent is accepted.

      Yeah, I guess it's better than nothing, but that's really not much incentive to work extra-hard, considering the extra time and effort needed to develop and write up the patent. If your patent is some obscure thing that no one cares about, the $1000 might be worth it to you. But if your idea makes the company hundreds of millions in profit, $1k is a really cheap reward.

      As a result, I never think about patenting anything I think of, or really bother trying to come up with anything that groundbreaking. If anything I'm working on is patentable (possible, but not likely), I'm not going expend the extra effort needed to see if it's patentable. If I get any truly great ideas, I'm just going to sit on them and wait until I'm working freelance before I do anything with them.

      It's funny how American companies give a lot of lip service these days to "innovation", but they're not willing to properly reward any of their employees for actually coming up with these innovations. A smarter society could easily outcompete us economically if they figured out how to reward people better for their efforts.
  • $8 mil is a drop in the bucket, this guy got screwed.

    • Re:Cheap (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tgrigsby ( 164308 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:24PM (#11337815) Homepage Journal
      Ok, let's review:

      o Most of us can't earn 1 million in a decade.

      o This guy has enough money that, if left in a simple account earning 5% (compounding left to the accountants), he could live off the interest of $400,000 a year.

      o That's a crap-load more than I make in a year.

      o He worked hard, but no harder than I work, and in some instances, no more hours than I work.

      o He got paid to do what he was doing.

      Should he have gotten paid more? Oh, hell yeah. Should the company have appreciated him more? Well, duh. Now the genius has left and they're stuck with whatever they've got to work with. They screwed themselves while screwing him. But to call $8 million a drop in the bucket is beyond cynical.

      While I'm not sure I agree with the decision of the court in terms of prior agreement of compensation, it certainly is just. The good guy won in the end, and he got the bonuses et al that he richly deserved.

    • And if Japanese settlements are like anything in the US, he paid the lawyers most of it, and the rest went to taxes. He'd be lucky to come home with enough to pay off his mortgage.

    • Re:Cheap (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iamacat ( 583406 )
      Oh come on. Say I bought a really good business skills book, just followed its instructions to the letter and somehow lucked out and made billions. Then later the author shows up, tells me he is barely making ends meet and asks for more money. I sure as hell hope I don't legally owe him money. Otherwise I have to keep paying perpetual royalties on all books, software, music, movies that I bought and put to good use. That's what the bad guys want, right?

      It's a different story if the inventor of the blue ra

      • Re:Cheap (Score:3, Informative)

        by Catbeller ( 118204 )
        copyright v. patent.

        A book is copyrighted, the ideas in it are not.
        A patent is a protected idea, stated most simply.

        • I don't see how it makes a difference. You can sell your knowledge to other people and after that you can't complain just because they are using it.

        • A patent is a protected idea, stated most simply.

          In many coutries, a patent is a protected invention. In the U.S., a patent is a protected [any idea you can get by the patent office.]

  • No reg required (Score:4, Informative)

    by elecngnr ( 843285 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:01PM (#11337494)

    For those who would like to read a similar article without having to give out information:

    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5 ?nn20050112a1.htm [japantimes.co.jp]

    and here:

    http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=bluele dinventorse1105540939&area=news [out-law.com]

    Pretty nice chunk of change for this guy. Although the company made quite a cunk themselves off of his work.

  • The courts just left other Japanese companies open to suits over patents. The inventor was working for them and invented the LED with there equipment. Thus the patent belongs to the company. I am shocked that he actually won the first round, and then settled before the appeal went through. Being recognized is important, and the revenue he made for the company is huge, but let us be realistic here. He was doing his job and is compensated for that.
    • Depends on his employment agreement. Some employment contracts do NOT give the company total ownership of an employee's discoveries on the job. Could be there was a loophole in his agreement and he took advantage of it.
      • No, there was a Japanese law enacted a while back that entitled employees to "fair compensation" for discoveries that result in large profits for their employer.

        Of course, like most Japanese law, it lays down no guidelines whatsoever as to the meaning of terms like "fair", which is why Nakamura got the shaft and Nichia stands to make over a billion dollars.
        • No, there was a Japanese law enacted a while back that entitled employees to "fair compensation" for discoveries that result in large profits for their employer.

          I find it ironic that this guy is complaining about the decision and the Japanese legal system, and urging researchers to go to the USA instead. We don't have any such law here! Maybe that Japanese law is vague, but it's a lot better than what we have, which is nothing. If he had invented that diode here, he would have been lucky to get a stand
      • Could be there was a loophole in his agreement and he took advantage of it.

        Which frankly, if true, puts him in a worse ethical light than the company that provided a $200 bonus for the discovery.

        While I realize that "looking for the loophole" is a classical American sport, no one is "in the right" in this case. They both deserve to lose, it's just too bad the spoils go to the lawyers.

    • this is not the first lawsuit of this kind. see my other posts.

      and japan isn't quite full of "oohhh, there's a precedent now!!! let's go get them $$$" lawyers... :D

  • No reg. link (Score:3, Informative)

    by Clockwurk ( 577966 ) * on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:03PM (#11337520) Homepage
    here [nytimes.com]

  • Please note... (Score:5, Informative)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:03PM (#11337522)
    ...Nakamura held a press conference (Yahoo Japan link) after the settlement was reached, where he said he considered the result to be a "total loss", described the Japanese legal system as "rotten", and urged researchers in technical fields to move to the US (he currently works at the University of California). [yahoo.co.jp]

    Meanwhile, the CEO of Nichia held a separate press conference where he announced that real researchers do it for the joy of technical achievement, and not for mere monetary compensation. What an asshole...

    • Re:Please note... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      --- of course he didn't continue on to point out that several of his best friends are CEO's who work for the joy or organizational achievement, not mere monetary compensation.

    • Re:Please note... (Score:4, Funny)

      by CodeBuster ( 516420 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @02:01PM (#11338318)
      In the words of Dilbert, "How about I trade you my joy of technical achievement for your raise and bonus?"

      The joy of achievement alone may be enough wherever this guy lives (la la land maybe?), but here in the real world we take cash on the barrel head...accept no substitutes.
    • Meanwhile, the CEO of Nichia held a separate press conference where he announced that real researchers do it for the joy of technical achievement, and not for mere monetary compensation. What an asshole...

      This sounds just like my CEO, who renewed his push for encouraging young people to go into engineering in spite of outsourcing concerns. While there may be an argument that outsourcing isn't as dangerous to the profession as some fear, this CEO's logic was the same as Nichia's: that they should do it be
  • >never received any bonuses or royalties

    i realize it won't change the principle of things at all (none whatsoever), but he was compensated to a 20,000 yen bonus. that's less than $200. but it wasn't "nothing."

  • Am I the only one... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eagle7 ( 111475 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:09PM (#11337615) Homepage
    ...who doesn't really get this? Sure, it's nice for a company to recognize thier employees with bonuses and such, but if I am hired by a company to invent and innovate *for that company*, then why do they owe me something (unless my contract says I will get a percentage of profits).

    On one hand, it is an idea coming out of my head, but on the other hand, the company is paying a constant salary, and taking all the risks that 1) my idea won't work, 2) it costs millions to make the idea profitable, or even 3) I never have any revolutionary ideas. I could keep that IP and the resulting money, but I'd need to front the capitol to live, do the research, patent it, make it profitable, etc.
    • People in oher countries aren't as brainwashed by big business propaganda like us Americans.
    • If I'm drawing a straight salary for doing my boring job every day, why should I bother thinking of revolutionary ideas, and then going to the effort of convincing people that my ideas are worth pursuing, writing up the patent, etc., if I'm not going to get any more? I can spend my extra time at home working on hobbies instead, and get a lot more satisfaction, and not have to watch as some corporate executives, who couldn't invent anything at all, make tons of money off my ideas.

      The most you can hope for

  • I heartily thank Mr. Nakamura. His multi-colored LED's were crucial to the 'pimping out' of my homemade PC. Now if we can only identify the equally deserving inventor of plexiglass.

  • New York Time error (Score:5, Interesting)

    by randall_burns ( 108052 ) <randall_burnsNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:18PM (#11337741)
    As usual, the New York Times errs in claiming that US industry is markedly better than Japanese industry. US industry has a bad habit of treating outstanding contributors rather poorely. Look at what they did to Kary Mullis [gtalumni.org] creator of the most valuable patent of the 20th century. Japan has had some problems here-but at least their businesses try seriously to provide for all their employees--and Japanese upper managers rarely get the extremely high salaries common in the US. In the US, even extremely productive contributors can easily find themselves homeless in their old age-and US management is so dominated by MBA's and lawyers that management has real trouble figuring out who the real contributors are in highly technical businesses. I think this case is important because it shows Japan is moving in a positive direction-basically containing their executive compensation and providing some additional options for their star engineers to gain early retirement/recognition.
    • Yeah, and those same companies tend to pay the person who does nothing all day because they shouldn't be in engineering in the first place more than someone who produces the ass off but has less seniority. I know people at /. like to fawn over Japan as the perfect society, but that is pure and utter BS. Japan has been in about 0% GDP growth mode for A DECADE!!! With very few signs of abating. A large part of the problem in Japan is the fact that everyone gets treated the same really. It's bloated and i
      • Where are your figures on 0% GDP growth for Japan? When I look at the figures in the CIA factbook, I see GDP/person of working age growing _faster_ in Japan than the US the last 4 years. A big chunk of the reason the US economy is growing is the workforce is being expanded via unprecedented immigration. However, the growth of GDP per person of working age is lagging the US. Now, the Japanese are producing fewer people-but it isn't exactly like that island is underpopulated.
    • It depends on how you define "most valuable patent". The article (ok, I broke a rule and RTFA) said it sold for $300M - a record for the health care industry. That kind of implies another industry might have had a larger sale. For a single patent, it's pretty important - most patents extend existing ideas, but aren't much good on their own.

  • One the one hand... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mbessey ( 304651 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:19PM (#11337747) Homepage Journal
    I can see the guy's point - the company he worked for has made probably many many millions of dollars off that invention. On the other hand, he signed a contract to work for them that didn't include any promises of profit-sharing on things he invented for them.

    The contract I'm currently working under actually specifies that I'll get a (relatively small) bonus for any patented technology I develop. If the company made zillions of dollars off one of my ideas, I'd be surprised if they gave me a million dollars for it.

    One additional complication that comes in is where do you draw the line? I'm sure more than just this one guy contributed to this invention. Should they all get millions of dollars? What about the guys in marketing and sales, where's their million-dollar bonus?

    -Mark
    • On the other hand, he signed a contract to work for them that didn't include any promises of profit-sharing on things he invented for them.

      You are working under the assumption that every country operates under U.S. law.

      In the country where I live, if somebody dreams up a patentable invention at work, during business hours, on company equipment, and patents it, then that patent belongs to the employee as an individual, not the company, and the company is prohibited by law to require otherwise in the emplo
  • Like my current employer. I had to sign over my rights to *ANY* invention, not just one that was invented on company time, or related to the business.
    I'm a mechanical engineer, and I work for a company that makes nuclear submarines for the Navy. Sometimes, stuff is patented, but it's gov't technology anyways.
    Point is, they're so anal about protecting themselves that they want to own everything.

    If I invent the next Chia pet in my basement, they'll own it. And I know a lot of companies are like this, pr
    • I did a little research on this after a dispute with my former employers.

      Like non-compete agreements, not all courts support this kind of agreement with your employer. The thing is, many companies realize this and do it anyway. That's because most folks aren't going to challenge it - too expensive, time-consuming, etc. And if you want to keep your job, suing your employer isn't a great way of having a happy workplace.

      It's such a grey area that you'd have to consult a lawyer and hope for a judge's favor in
    • I'm an embedded developer and I also have the same sort onerous contract. So most of creative & inventive tinkering goes to interesting but wacky ideas that not only are outside of our core competence but the company wouldn't touch if they were. So far I've landed a couple of personal patents and one developed product that I then sold to a manufacturer. It's generally known by upper management and not contested. So I have concluded it was more like the ridiculous non-compete clauses they cook up, wh
    • If I invent the next Chia pet in my basement, they'll own it. And I know a lot of companies are like this, presumably because they can get away with it.

      Lawyers and their corporate masters usually get carried away with the language that they use in their contracts. It is sort of like used car salesmen, they price the car way high, not because they think that they can actually sell it for that amount, but because they know that you will haggle them down to the price which is actually reasonable. The goal

  • japanese point of view (Score:5, Informative)

    by jxyama ( 821091 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:23PM (#11337807)
    the take in japan is that it's not as cut and dry as "one works for the company to invent, whatever profit derived from it is owned by the company and not to the inventor."

    this is not the first lawsuit of this kind. inventor of aspartane (artificial sweetner) sued ajinomoto (company known for MSG) and won ~$1.5 million before.

    basically, the feeling is that providing reasonable compensation for inventors, regardless of where technically the invention patent or methods belong to, is good for the morale of workers, provides incentives and thus advances the society as a whole and increases competitiveness of corporations. finally, providing reasonable compensation is also economically viable for the company.

    he was awarded $8.1 million after his contribution to the invention was deemed to be 5%, instead of the 50% in the prior ruling. the original ruling resulted in ~$600 million settlement.

    the company issued a statement saying it's glad that the invention of LED was attributed to more than just one person, as indicated by the reduction of Dr. Nakamura's contribution value by the court.

  • He's a lucky guy... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MLopat ( 848735 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#11337864) Homepage
    I could write a short list of products that I've created that have generated millions of dollars for companies that I've done work for, either as an employee or a contractor. But in doing the work, I was paid a guaranteed salary, and knew I would receive that whether the products were profitable or not.

    There's more to making profit than just creating an invention. If the company didn't provide the supporting technology and capital to research and produce the product, then it wouldn't have been invented. Not to mention the whole marketing aspect. Sure you can be sitting on a million dollar idea, but without capital, marketing and a distribution model, it's worthless.

    If he felt this product was going to be such a success and could have produced it without his company, he should have left, raised venture capital and produced it himself.

  • Just capitalism doing it's thing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MasterC ( 70492 ) <cmlburnett@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @01:32PM (#11337916) Homepage
    It's cases like this where I go back and rethink capitalism vs. communism vs. etc. Take Kary Mullis [gtalumni.org] as another example (already mentioned in comments). His polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was patented by his employer, Cetus, who gave him a $10,000 bonus and then sold the IP for $300 million. His salary & bonus are a pittance for PCR.

    Makes me wonder if this is the type of stuff Marxists think will bring about communism...and how long capitalism can survive when the creator of extremely meaningful creations gets 0.00333% of the profits.
    • Well you just learned the difference between a worker and an entrepreneur. Sometimes the only thing the entrepreneur provides is money while the workers come up with the ideas and hard work, but it was the entrepreneur that took the bulk of the risk.

      While I think any company that doesn't lavishly reward an employee that drops something like that in their lap to be idiots and overly greedy, at the same time it was their lab, their personel, and their money.

      Better companies have typically have some sort

      • Nakamura should have really gone and formed his own company if he truly developed this idea on his own.

        That can be risky because your original employer can come back after you are successful and sue for damages, royalties, etc...unless you can prove that you had idea AFTER you were no longer employed by them (especially difficult if the patent is in the same field as the company's business). Otherwise, the assumption is that you quit so that you could develop it on your own without giving them their cut
  • So, did this guy get screwed or is it a victory for him? Sounds like the company's making a killing off his invention, so he should get a cut, but why wasn't this spelled out in his contract? (heck, maybe it was, i didn't R the FA...)

    Just have to say, these things are gratuitously bright. I built a new computer a few months ago, and got an Antec Sonata case, because I heard on Ars and elsewhere that it was a very solid, very quiet case. Well, I love it, except it has one of these blue LEDs on the front.

  • Next project (Score:2, Funny)

    by olrik666 ( 574545 )

    Quote Nakamura : "I'm happy with the settlement. I can now buy a shark to start my next project."

  • The transitor was invented in part because the team involved disobeyed [geocities.com] the Bell Labs Management. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar was going on here. I'm glad the Japanese folks have passed a law requiring fair compensation of inventors-however, I think they need to go further and look at how inventors are incorporated into the management structure of their major corporations and government institutions. If they do so, I suspect they kick the ass of the corrupt and decadent attorneys and MBA's

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