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Blue LED Inventor Nakamura Awarded $8.1 Million
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."
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.
...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.
_sig_ is away
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 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.
No, he settled because his lawyer told him he had "less than zero" (actual quote) chance of winning any more money if he took it to the Supreme Court.
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
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.
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.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
"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 company initially offered this guy."
Too bad for that schmuck, then, that he worked for GE in America.
Seriously, what incentive is there for an engineer to create something world-changing if he gets $200 and an attaboy memo for his trouble? 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.