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80-Year-Old Inventor Gil Hyatt Says Patent Office is Waiting For Him To Die (venturebeat.com)

Dean Takahashi, reporting for VentureBeat: Gil Hyatt has gotten many rewards from his days as an inventor. In 1990, he received a fundamental but controversial patent on what he called the first microprocessor, or computer on a chip. It was 22 years late, but he nosed out rivals such as Intel in being the first to file for a patent application in 1968. He then licensed that patent and 22 of his 69 other patents to Philips Electronics, which then began enforcing them on the rest of the electronics industry and collecting royalties.

Philips' efforts netted Hyatt more than $150 million, though the state of California would try for 24 years to take a big chunk of that money for taxes. It argued that Hyatt pretended to move to Las Vegas in 1991, but in 2017, he finally prevailed in convincing the tax board that he really did move. But at 80 years old, Hyatt still isn't resting on the rewards he got. In fact, he's still in a bitter battle with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He claims the office is sitting on his remaining applications, and is waiting for him to die. Hyatt sued to get the patent office to issue his remaining patent applications. The patent office declined to comment, citing the litigation.
Further reading: Gil Hyatt interview: Why patent examiners gave controversial patents a scarlet letter.

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. A shame he isn't getting the credit he deserves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Gil is a visionary, ahead of his time, much like Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace. Like Jobs, he was able to reduce concepts to their very essence, setting aside the preconceived notions that held his peers back and led them to criticize him for rocking the boat. Like Jobs he was able to effect change for the betterment of the world.

  2. Re:California FTB is like that... by blindseer · · Score: -1, Troll

    Look out. Slashdot Cunts will downmod you for shitting on their precious state.

    I hear that shitting on California is quite popular. People will just shit on the streets, in the parks, just anywhere they please. This shitting on California got so bad that they lost a lot of business from national conventions that used to meet there, stating concerns of health and comfort. Now they go to where people learned to shit in a toilet.

    Oh, right, not that shitting in a toilet in California is always helpful. A combination of not being able to provide enough municipal water and the mandates for low flush toilets has meant not enough water flows through the sewer systems to clear out the shit. Now they have to ship in bleach by the truckload to clean everything up and kill the smell.

    The recent droughts they have is no excuse for not enough fresh water. There are far drier places in the world that can find enough water for people to drink and bathe. They have access to the ocean, so the shortage of drinking water can be only because they failed to build enough desalination capacity. South Africa is in a similar situation. Both saw demand for water rise but did nothing to plan for new capacity of water supply.

    The whole state of California is a shit hole. It will only get worse until the politicians stop shitting on it themselves.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.