Blue LED Inventor Loses Patent Fight

Swamp writes "Just a little heads-up for you engineers. The Mainichi Daily News is running this story saying 'A Nobel Prize candidate who invented a blue light-emitting diode (LED) used for display panels has no patent rights over the product as he conceded it to his former employer, a court ruled Thursday.' 'Japan's Patent Law provides that researchers who invent products as part of their company jobs have the patent for them, but adds that their employers can claim the patent after paying "deserving bonuses" to the inventors.' I guess not even being a Nobel Prize [contender] gives you credit anymore." His 20,000 yen bonus is about US$162 now.

Comments

Re:Labor/Capital balance gone awry?

[SIGFPE]

If all he could get was a $10K bonus then he ought to quit and find a company who'll pay him more. If he was unable to get a job paying more than that, after Nobel prize material, then it must be that other prospective employers don't have very high expectations of his future work. Or you're not telling us the full story.

I AM offended!

[pedro]

I have but one thing to say to you, 'cause more would be a waste of my time, (you wouldn't understand it anyway) and it is thus:

Fuck You, Asshole.

There. I'm done.

Re:Labor/Capital balance gone awry?

[BitGeek]

Last thing scientists/engineers need is to bring a union in.

Unions are great in theory, but in modern days they've turned into a protection racket.

"I think you'd better be giving me %15 of your income, see, or you won't be having a job, see".

Its not like the days when Jimmy Hoffa would go around firebombing places that didn't join his union, but its not much better.

Collective bargaining is good for employees- its a human right. But unions in this country have taken over that right and actually remove rights for employees. Now we have the government getting involved and taking people's rights away and giving them to unions. I'm not just talking about companies rights, but employees rights.

An example: A father of three, with a wife to support as well, was fired from his job because he wasn't able to pay union dues. Not because he was doing a good job, but because the union had a monopoly on the employement for that company and they were not allowed to hire anyone who wasn't union. Talk about extortion, and a violation of both his rights and his employers rights. You have a right to work and a third party doesn't have a right to prevent you from entering into an agreement with an employer. IF the union isn't providing enough of a service to get people to join it voluntarily, then they shouldn't be allowed.

Course union idiots always say" they have to join because why should they be allowed to benefit from the work we did before?" Yeah, sure, as if YOU were the ones that created the job.

BTW, the average scientist in this country makes at least twice what the average MBA does. Typical fear mondering on your part there.