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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."
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.