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Inventor of Optical Storage Gets Little Reward

Posted by michael on from the happy-birthday-to-linus-torvalds dept.

Thu Anon Coward writes "This poor guy invented optical storage (CDs, DVDs) and never made a dime. Another case of an idea before its time and cheating a man of his due. To quote the article, 'Consumers will spend billions this holiday season on CDs, DVDs and machines to record and play the ubiquitous silver discs. But the inventor of the underlying technology won't make a cent. Today, Russell does consulting from a lab in the basement of his Bellevue home to keep in the game and supplement a modest pension from Battelle.'"

5 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Moron by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Well, maybe the "poor guy" should have protected his IP-rights better or at least done the same thing as this guy:

    "Nakamura was working on a semiconductor called gallium nitride. Some 13 years later he is locked in a bitter patent dispute with Nichia and stands to receive an estimated EURO 17 m if he wins. Why? Because he was first past the post." (the lawsuit which he won)

    In short, Jim Russell was just stupid. It's just insanely moronic to spend time and money inventing something revolutionary like optical storage and then neglect your intellectual property rights. If you don't profit from your invention, someone will. When that happens, it's too late to cry.

    Just fucking patent everything you invent and only after that decide what you're going to do with it.

  2. ahhh The life of an inventor.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Al Gore invented the Internet - I don't think he gets any royalties either? Does Edison's estate get royalties from every light bulb sold? Include this guys paypal account and I'll throw him a dollar.

  3. Re:and if he would have patented it by theREALMcCoy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is wisdom. The sad hypocritical truth.

  4. Contradictory /. Concensus.... by kevlar · · Score: 0, Flamebait


    Red Alert! We have a major moral breakdown of the /. Intellectual Property Concensus! It is immoral to have both the ability to own intellectual property AND profit from ones invention!! So what if he invented optical storage! He invented it for the betterment of society, not for his own monetary gain...

  5. Please, PLEASE mod parent up! +99 Insightful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    The parent poster definitely has the nads to risk a Slashcode bitchslap for pointing out what is perhaps the most obvious hypocrasy on Slashdot. Slashdot "editor" michael as well as the rest have been repeatedly proven to be hypocrits, yet the masses seem to ignore this. IP rules are relative to the owners of said IP: If "geek cool" then the rules apply, if "hollywood" then all manners of "unauthorized duplication" is not only acceptable it's considered standard operating procedure. Slashdot's hypocracy is addressed by a brave few, only to be ignored by the intellectually-dulled collective.