Japanese Nobel Laureate Blasts His Country's Treatment of Inventors 191
schwit1 writes: Shuji Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics (along with two other scientists) for his work inventing blue LEDs. But long ago he abandoned Japan for the U.S. because his country's culture and patent law did not favor him as an inventor. Nakamura has now blasted Japan for considering further legislation that would do more harm to inventors.
"In the early 2000s, Nakamura had a falling out with his employer and, it seemed, all of Japan. Relying on a clause in Japan's patent law, article 35, that assigns patents to individual inventors, he took the unprecedented step of suing his former employer for a share of the profits his invention was generating. He eventually agreed to a court-mediated $8 million settlement, moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and became an American citizen. During this period he bitterly complained about Japan's treatment of inventors, the country's educational system and its legal procedures. 'The problem is now the Japanese government wants to eliminate patent law article 35 and give all patent rights to the company. If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors].'"
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes to the law in the 1970s and 1990s have made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individuals who might actually create the work.
"In the early 2000s, Nakamura had a falling out with his employer and, it seemed, all of Japan. Relying on a clause in Japan's patent law, article 35, that assigns patents to individual inventors, he took the unprecedented step of suing his former employer for a share of the profits his invention was generating. He eventually agreed to a court-mediated $8 million settlement, moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and became an American citizen. During this period he bitterly complained about Japan's treatment of inventors, the country's educational system and its legal procedures. 'The problem is now the Japanese government wants to eliminate patent law article 35 and give all patent rights to the company. If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors].'"
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes to the law in the 1970s and 1990s have made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individuals who might actually create the work.
Poor delusional old man (Score:3, Insightful)
Only if he knew that all work created during the time of employment in the US rightfully belongs to the employer....
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Re:Poor delusional old man (Score:4, Informative)
Entirely depends on the state. Some allow companies to claim all patents filed by their employees as innovation for hire in some circumstances.
Re:Poor delusional old man (Score:5, Informative)
Oh! That's why we have had an influx of a LOT of US researchers recently. Our copyright (which is, more accurately, actually called "creators right") pretty much disallows such a clause.
Might be a reason why lots of people prefer to do research in Europe where their employers can only offer a shared exploitation of stuff you do in your private time. Usually it's not the worst idea to agree to something like this, since the company usually has far better means to monetize your inventions and has less of an incentive to screw you over than any competitor (since they usually want to retain you in their team, too). But they can neither force you to do so nor simply push you aside, what you do on your own time is your own.
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Employers may misquote local laws (Score:2)
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The U.S. patent law is federal law.
(Federal) Patent law does not address the ownership question, it simply grants patent rights to who the owner is. The actual ownership is an issue of contract law (or more specifically the imputed contract of employment between employer and employee). Although there are some federal legal issues in employment contracting (e.g., EEOC, minimum wage, working conditions, etc), most of the legal aspects of employment contract law is set by the states (e.g,. right to work, living wage, etc) and local rules whic
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Employment contracts do not override state law. In some states, stuff you do on your own time with your own equipment belongs to you no matter what you have or have not signed.
Re:Poor delusional old man (Score:5, Informative)
You are incorrect. Patents and copyrights done on your own time and not relating to company assets are yours.
You might want to re-read your employment contract. It is not uncommon for your contract to state that stuff you work on during the term of your employment belongs to the company unless you have made prior arrangements. At my company, unless you get agreement in writing specifying what you are working on in your own time, everything belongs to the company.
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They can write all kinds of things into employment contracts but they may not be legally enforceable. For example in Australia an employer may claim ownership of an employee's inventions/patents relating to their core business, but not all inventions/patents in general.
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The question now is whether you have a justice system where some average researcher can actually hope to see him winning a case against a huge corporation before his address reads "second car on the Wallmart parking lot".
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Nah, Australia is a loser pays legal system, so it's easy to get lawyers to take on easy cases like that on a no-win no-fee basis.
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So in other words, if you win, you're great, but if you lose (and there is always some danger of losing, no matter how straightforward it seems), then not only do you lose your patent, but you also lose your house, your savings, and your pension. (Yes, here's the bill for $5 million dollars we spent suing you.)
I'd guess that simply the threat of suing would make most people collapse. After all, a company could easy spend several hundred thousand dollars in prepping for a suit that you could be on the hook
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Yeah no, there's a straightforward schedule of reasonable costs: http://www.federalcircuitcourt... [federalcir...urt.gov.au]
If you *really* love your legal team and want to spend $5 million on your defense against an individual, I think you're probably going to be $5 million out of pocket (rounding up).
Re: Poor delusional old man (Score:2)
I have worked for big and small companies in the UK and in all situations I have had no issues getting these clauses removed from contracts. These are all UK/EU based companies however.
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No, they would not. In Soviet Communism, it was another nomenklatura altogether. Same shit, different people.
For the US people, think of it as a democrat instead of a republican government. Same shit going down, different people being allowed to fill their pockets.
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That is flatly untrue, especially jobs where the employee is not doing any knowledge work.
I got around this by simply refusing to sign the document on a job I had been working at for several years. I told my boss and we wrote up a new document that did not include that clause. You can do that when the company could not afford to lose you.
Amusingly enough, the boss must have done the same thing, as he left the company for a rival some time after that. The company we worked for sued... and lost badly.
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In the first place, you're wrong. Not every employment agreement has a "we own your brains" clause. In my current job, the agreement says nothing about stuff I develop on my own time and equipment (although there is a limited non-compete agreement). In the second place, some states explicitly ban such parts of employment agreements.
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The answer is that courts rule differently in different states because state law varies from state to state, and in the US this is covered by state law. In Texas, the courts apparently enforce the idea that anything you think of is your employer's. In California, it's the reverse.
Re:Poor delusional old man (Score:4, Interesting)
You are incorrect. Patents and copyrights done on your own time and not relating to company assets are yours.
Only if they don't make money.
I have signed paperwork from the first company I ever worked for that gives them the ownership of anything I ever invented. The next ones too. The wording is interesting, but as I read it, it leaves room for interpretation, the favorite tools of the patent trolls
I haven't invented anything patented, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I ever did, and it was a big moneymaker, I'd be hit with lawsuits of ownership, claims that I did the work on company time or used company resources, and then the winner would be sued by the others, until only one was left.
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If you are someone capable of creating something patentable, don't sign the document and don't work for a company that insists on it. Same goes for unreasonable non-compete agreements.
Of course, they will sue you document-or-not, but its pretty much a guaranteed win without it.
Or, if you want, put a value on that part of your agreement. If they pay you enough that you don't need to worry about inventing stuff, why not go for it?
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Hah.
Fat chance.
I had to sign a piece of paper required for employment that states "I voluntarily agree to sign over the Company all rights and titles and other ownership of anything I invent or create or develop while I am employed by the Company, or continue to develop if already created prior to employment, that is in any way inspired by or useful for the work I perform, or otherwise potentially useful to or marketable by the company in any way, or its division, subsidiaries, parents or partners."
I asked,
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Hos is the US any better? (Score:2, Insightful)
In the US, your employee contract will state that everything you invent is property of the company. The patent will be listed in your name, but patent ownership will be assigned to the company.
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In the US, your employee contract will state that everything you invent is property of the company.
Unless you didn't sign a contract like that. Enshrining something in law is a whole lot different than a contractual matter that may not be in your contract.
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But it's funny how time and again we find the spot where your head has to be severed from the rest of your body.
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When exactly? If you're naively referring to the French Revolution, may I remind you that it was wanted and supported by the Bourgeoise class, which had enough of the unproductive nobility and clergy? Yes, Big Money wanted a change and got it. The populace served as a mere weapon. All the "workers' revolutions" have failed. Should you try now to do anything foolish, we will destroy you, utterly. The power imbalance is simply too great. In most of the civilized world we have a disarmed populace, and in the r
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Two words: Asymmetric Warfare.
Today it's religious nutjobs against US soldiers, tomorrow it's 99 vs 1 percent. It's starting already. All it really takes anymore is someone able and willing to lead. That's why you need total surveillance, because once someone like this can be found, killing him not only gets more complicated but also only serves as creating a martyr.
In the end, there has not been a single asymmetric war where the allegedly stronger side has won. US independence war, Vietnam war, Afghanistan
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tomorrow it's 99 vs 1 percent.
The people advocating "99% vs 1%" really mean the bottom 40% against the top 60%. Remember when Obama said that his policies would help "98% of all Americans and 99% of all plumbers"? It didn't work out that way, did it? If the 1% are guillotined, or (more likely) have their assets taken through punitive taxation, then you will be next.
First they came for the 1%, and I did not speak out because I was not part of the 1% ...
It's starting already.
I don't think so. Elizabeth Warren is polling in single digits, and Republicans ha
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I don't think so. Elizabeth Warren is polling in single digits, and Republicans have just taken over the Senate. You are delusional if you think there is a groundswell of support for redistributive policies.
Orly?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165794/americans-raising-minimum-wage.aspx
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/28/taxing-the-rich-remains-popular/
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/08/with-41-of-global-wealth-in-the-hands-of-less-than-1-elites-and-citizens-agree-inequality-is-a-top-priority/
Eat the rich.
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Eat the rich
While greed is a vice, so is envy. Look in the mirror my friend.
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That may be the case, but the "weaker" side always has way more casualties, too. Battle casualties were about six times higher for the colonists than the British. (the real grand champion was disease, though. Dat Mother Nature)
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Very true. For such a scenario to take place people would have to have it a lot worse still. But we're getting there, give it time.
Re: Hos is the US any better? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be honest, what I can't figure out is why people aren't just...writing their own laws. I keep seeing first-world anarchists on reddit (and slashdot, and the comments sections on CNN, etc) call for violent revolution and they never seem to get around to answering "and then what?" Well, first they never answer "exactly who is it you want on the chopping block? Name names."
All the laws are online. You've got a text editor and wikis are free. Think there are holes in the constitution? Okay, show us how you'd plug them. Don't like FCC regulations? Okay, rewrite them and post them. Gosh, I bet if people do that, others might even think their ideas were good enough to...I dunno...vote for? Get enough people to go along with those ideas (which would be the end result of the blood-in-the-streets bit) and you can even skip that whole thing!
But no, no, that would be boring and tedious work. Much better to advocate blood and murder and figure it all out later.
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Destroying has always been easier than building.
The main problem with governments is that the moment you let it come into contact with humans, it falls apart. We can't let humans be part of government. Or society, for that matter.
Anyone got a spare neutron bomb?
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Be grateful it's us One Percenters making the rules, you rabble couldn't even find your arse without someone giving you directions.
Oh yes, you've made sure of that haven't you?
Say what ? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes to the law in the 1970s and 1990s have made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individuals who might actually create the work.
Wow it's amazing how if you hate something enough you can see everything as justifying your hatred.
Having copyright extend ever longer is both stupid and counterproductive, but it's no way comparable to changes that take away a creators right to profit from their creations. Arguably it makes the creations more valuable and makes it easier to invest in creating material for either a corporation or an individual. Contrast that with a law from the article that "If the Japanese government changes the patent law it means basically there would no compensation [for inventors]." Apples to Orangutans here.
With so many very good arguments about why copyright needs to be reformed there's no need to make bad ones.
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With so many very good arguments about why copyright needs to be reformed there's no need to make bad ones.
schwit1 figured this was an opportunity pick at one of his grievances expecting the freetard groupthink around here to indulge him.
And he's right.
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Its also worth pointing out that this inventor did receive compensation - the company covered all his research costs, failures and employment while he did the inventing. Seems to me its the company that gets the raw end of the deal in Japan - all the investment, no patent at the end of the day.
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Seems to me a shared system is most appropriate. Sort of like how the inventor got $8 million, in addition to the salary he still would have been paid had his research produced nothing.
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Um... you answered your own question right there. Nobody mentioned the article and the GP specifically quoted the summary.
Works as designed (Score:5, Interesting)
Patent and copyright laws have never been about compensating inventors or creators. If they had been, they would be mandating actual payment to them.
Their construction as monopoly rights in a market where few individual creators or inventors will be scarce resources ensures that the negotiating power will be entirely on those in control of markets and distribution networks. The middle man can easily just pick up another provider of materials, while the originator is forced to take whatever deal is offered or face being unable to reach customers at all. Modern technology has slightly improved the situation with better opportunities, but ultimately, the deck is stacked solidly against the creators.
But that's working as it's designed. The purpose of monopoly rights has always been to provide stable market power and protection from free market competition for the friends of the crown. Creators are merely the convenient, powerless and easily replaceable excuse.
Re:Works as designed (Score:5, Informative)
This is nonsence. The entire reason for the patent is to bring knowledge into the public domain, to stop that knowledge being hidden as a trade secret. The twenty year monopoly is the bargain the state makes with the inventor for that knowledge.
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QFT.
I don't have mod points but that'e exactly what I was gonna say, so.
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Opportunity for compensation (Score:2)
Patent and copyright laws have never been about compensating inventors or creators. If they had been, they would be mandating actual payment to them.
Patents and copyrights are mechanisms that create the OPPORTUNITY for inventors or creators to profit from their work. If the inventors sell their work or assign it as a condition of employment to a third party, that is a separate issue. If they cannot or will not profit from their work, that is their problem. The idea is to give them a "temporary" (yeah, I know...) monopoly on their work as a reward for creating something valuable to society. The entire purpose is to combat the free rider problem [wikipedia.org]. Fin
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If they cannot or will not profit from their work, that is their problem.
That's how it should be. Instead, we end up with monopolies enforced by government thugs that violate our right to freedom of speech and/or our private property rights.
Find a better solution to the free rider problem and there is no need whatsoever for patents or copyrights.
Freedom is more important than solving the "free rider" problem, but even if it weren't, there is no hard scientific proof that copyrights or patents are actually effective in the first place, and absent any proof, there should be no restrictions. So, either way, I will reject your 'solution,' just like I would reject the TSA and NSA mass sur
If you want personal patent... (Score:5, Insightful)
Spend your personal time and resources at inveting.
If you spend your worktime and resources from your job for your invention I don't see why you personally should get a patent. If my boss pays me to clean toilets and I invent something then there might be a point, but if my boss pays me (and gives me staff to freely use) to invent stuff I don't see the merit.
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No question about that, but only if what I invent was invented on company time, using company equipment and company assistants. With creative jobs it may be a bit more complicated since you can't put the "company" portion of your brain in a locker and you take your work home by definition, but if I come up with a new algorithm for robot pathing it should not belong to the company I work for if what I do there has nothing to do with robots (just to give a real life example).
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And as long as the "at work" portion is in there, it's all fine and correct. I have a similar clause in my contract, for the same reason.
But never forget to insist in this "at work" bit. Everything I do NOT do at work is mine, mine and mine alone. I have a clause that I have to offer it first to my employer and I must negotiate commercialization with them, though I have the right to go somewhere else if I get a better offer and they cannot force me to hand over anything I do on my spare time.
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But why should the financier of the invention (company) enjoy all the profits from the sale of the product in exchange for providing a common service such as inventor's salary and tools? What gives them the right to make so much money off someone else's work?
If the invention were truly valuable, shouldn't the deal about profit-sharing be reasonable and fair? Something like the maximum of either:
a) fixed payment of $8 million
OR
b) 2% of r
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But why should the financier of the invention (company) enjoy all the profits
Because they paid for it.
If I pay you to invent stuff, and you expect extra compensation if you actually invent something, then are you also willing to retroactively forfeit your salary if you fail to invent anything? If you aren't willing to do a job in return for a fixed salary, then DON'T TAKE THE JOB. Take a different job, or start your own company.
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Sorry, they didn't pay for it. They only paid a living wage so the inventor could make stuff for them. The financier has not paid the full value of the invention. When you buy a house, you pay for the land, the building materials and labor costs. You don't just pay the living costs of the contractor. And since the future value of the patent is unknown, it should be some kind of profit split.
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Why should the business be able to make unlimited $$$ off the patent and the inventor only get one fixed, small amount?
Because that was the mutual agreement between the business and the employee.
We need govt regulation.
Then all the research labs will move to China.
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This is circular reasoning. You can just turn that argument around: If the law says the inventions always belong to the inventor and not to the company, then the salary cannot be compensation for the rights to the inventions. If the company is not happy with this, then DON'T OFFER THAT JOB. See, works either way.
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That's where clause (b) kicks in, and the inventor makes x% of the product revenue/sales (not profit). And it's the maximum of either (a), (b) or (c) which is at least $8 million and such a contract reduces the chance of any legal trickery.
The number are wrong/reversed in my post above. It should be:
b) 0.5% of product sales/revenue
OR
c) 2% of product profit
Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
He created the work while employed by someone. That someone provided him with all the equipment and capabilities to do the research why the hell should he be awarded the patent?
If you are part of a team who gets the patent? It seems to me only logical that the entity that commissioned the work, invested the resources and made it happen ie the company should own the patent.
As for the education system. Correct me if I am wrong but this guy who is now holder of a nobel prize is the product of that education system.... There seems to be a serious axe to grind there with a feeling that he didn't get his due and I think he is drawing a very long bow.
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
He created the work while employed by someone. That someone provided him with all the equipment and capabilities to do the research why the hell should he be awarded the patent?
If you are part of a team who gets the patent? It seems to me only logical that the entity that commissioned the work, invested the resources and made it happen ie the company should own the patent.
As for the education system. Correct me if I am wrong but this guy who is now holder of a nobel prize is the product of that education system.... There seems to be a serious axe to grind there with a feeling that he didn't get his due and I think he is drawing a very long bow.
I dunno... because he was the source of innovation? If you have a valuable employee whose abilities are responsible is generating a substantial portion of your company's revenues you might want to keep him happy and employed with you. Treating him/her like shit, paying him/her worse than shit while you go off buying yachts, villas, luxury cars and renting top range hookers with all the money you earned through your hard work will probably result in that employee leaving your company and going somewhere else to another company who offers superior compensation and a share in the profits. Now there are two ways to pervent this, you can:
(1) Not treat your valued employee like shit and outbid your competitors to keep the employee from leaving (that's the theoreticalcapitalist way) or
(2) you could do what many companies in the western world to, you could lobby for legislation that restricts worker's rights, seek to get government to ban empoyees from organizing, and try to force your employees to sign contracts with 'anti competition clauses' in them that are usually found to be unconstutional though fortunately (from the managers point of view) this normally only happens after a prolonged legal battle that employees as a rule can't afford.
If you are part of a team that is awarded a patent pretty much the same applies. Employees should award teams that generate alot of revenue for the company with a share in the profits. Otherwise the employees should be free to leave.
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
And he was free to leave. In fact he did leave.
As for being the source of the innovation, there is no question that he is a brilliant scientist. But there are lots of brilliant scientists. If another had been given the same job as him there is nothing to say they wouldn't have been the one to have come up with blue leds.
In the end he signed an agreement to trade his time and expertise for a set figure, his salary. After the agreement, because his particular work was more successful than expected, he wants a bigger share.
If you leave your company I assume that you know you don't get to take all the intellectual property you have been working on with you. Whether you are a scientist building blue leds, a programmer writing a phone app, or a sales monkey with a list of clients. That IP belongs to your employer.
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
> As for being the source of the innovation, there is no question that he is a brilliant scientist. But there are lots of brilliant scientists. If another had been given the same job as him there is nothing to say they wouldn't have been the one to have come up with blue leds.
Anyone who knows the field would say so. Other colors for LED's were a long sought goal at the time, and the new technologies required several genuine developments and insights. When told to stop working on it at his company, he continued the research on his own, with materials he paid for out of his own salary. His was a classic case of a dedicated scientist completing a tack considered too difficult by his superiors.
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly in this case the court disagrees with you, and I'll try to explain why. From TFA:
"Nakamura, who held only a master's degree and was toiling practically on his own at a small specialty chemical manufacturer in rural Shikoku, cracked the fabrication challenges to get a bright blue LED that was commercially viable."
So he did a lot of the work on his own time and with his own company. More over, in Japan, like many counties, "you are free to leave" is not an excuse for bad working conditions or contracts. Courts can and do decide that things are unfair, even if you agreed to them at the time.
In Japan patents are awarded to individuals. Employment contracts can stipulate that things invented at work have to be turned over to the company, but they can only do so within the bounds of contract law. In this case since Nakamura put in a lot of work and money on his own to develop a commercially viable fabrication method for blue LEDs it doesn't matter that the contract says the people he was working for own everything he patents, because he was not compensated for that work and the law says that he must be.
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There ws a study a few years back. The top programmers were 4x as productive as the average one, and there were things the top programmers could do the average ones couldn't, no matter how much time they were given.
How much more so for intricate details of physics and other research of the physical that takes years rather than minutes of turnaround time.
There's a feeling among the historically illiterate that technological advancement happens "more or less aitomatically". Yet a quick glance around the wor
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to me only logical that the entity that commissioned the work, invested the resources and made it happen ie the company should own the patent.
What you're proposing sounds like zero incentive to invent while being employed. Doesn't make much sense psychologically.
$8 Million is quite low if you know what this guy's invention stimulated across various fields
I think just is if one agrees with the employer about a certain split ratio when signing for the job. It seems that here in Germany while employed at a university the inventor is entitled to 30% of the revenue achieved by commercialization.
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Exactly - the split when you sign on for the job. He signed on for a job, collected a salary, did his job. Congrats he built something cool.
You don't get to renegotiate afterwards. Your incentive to do stuff at work is your salary. If you are writing code for a living you will create new things ever day to solve the problem you encounter. That is inventing. If you are a researcher then you are paid to invent stuff. You signed on for the job. I don't hear anyone saying that a researcher should have t
Expected value of contributions (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't get to renegotiate afterwards. Your incentive to do stuff at work is your salary.
Why not? If you have the bargaining position to negotiate a better deal after the fact why shouldn't you? Some naive sense of obligation or fairness to a company that doesn't reciprocate? Don't be absurd. Some work cannot be done without having the resources of a company behind you and no one ever knows if they are going to create something really valuable ahead of time. Maybe the guy was in a tough situation when he was first employed and wasn't in a position to walk away despite some odious contractual terms. If the guy has the ability to get paid for the full value of his work then he should seek to do so.
I run a company and if someone were to unexpectedly create something that benefited the company greatly, I'd be a selfish prick to not share substantially of the rewards with that person. It doesn't mean the company has to hand over all the benefits but sharing a substantial percent of the rewards with an inventor is quite fair.
If you are writing code for a living you will create new things ever day to solve the problem you encounter.
That doesn't mean every problem you solve will be worth millions to the company. This guy did something FAR beyond the expected value of his services and it's not unreasonable for him to ask to be compensated accordingly even after the fact. While the company doesn't legally have to do anything, it doesn't follow that they shouldn't make sure the guy is well compensated for his efforts.
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It seems to me only logical that the entity that commissioned the work, invested the resources and made it happen ie the company should own the patent.
What you're proposing sounds like zero incentive to invent while being employed. Doesn't make much sense psychologically.
The guy was paid to invent stuff. It's not like he was a cashier or even a QA engineer who just happened across LED technology in his spare time. His employer gave him a salary, a staff, and a bunch of fancy equipment to play with, and (presumably) instructions somewhere between "make something cool" and "make us a blue LED." If he hadn't invented anything, he would (again, presumably) have been fired for failure.
Certainly, a rational company should offer some reward to their successful R&D teams. S
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You don't get it. He worked for a company which did fluorescent light coatings. He decided to do advanced LED research on his own, against his superiors advice, who told him he could only do it in his own time and not using any company working time. They did allow him to use company equipment to conduct his research but he had to do it on his own time.
So yes he used company equipment but he did it outside regular working hours.
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Also from what I heard he worked for himself for a long time and only after he produced some results did he get a team to work on it. From what I understand he only expected a promotion and a better salary out of it. But the thing is they increased his responsibilities a lot made him head of a research team and while his company earned billions his career did not advance in any meaningful way neither in terms of salary nor rank. So he got tired and left.
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What you're proposing sounds like zero incentive to invent while being employed. Doesn't make much sense psychologically.
Your incentive to invent while being employed is staying employed. Companies fund R&D so that they can profit from the discoveries.
Suppose you work hard on something but it doesn't work out. Should the company be able to take your house from you to cover their losses? Of course not!
That is the difference between an investor and an employee. An investor puts money into a company and it is at risk. An employee receives money from a company and it isn't at risk. The employee gets a steady paycheck.
What's wrong with a bonus for good performance? (Score:2)
Your incentive to invent while being employed is staying employed. Companies fund R&D so that they can profit from the discoveries.
That doesn't mean the company cannot share a portion of the profits from those discoveries with the people who made them possible. It is hardly unreasonable to throw a big fat bonus at someone who creates a technology that generates millions in profits for the company. It's no different than paying a big commission check to a sales person who lands a big account. It rewards success and helps motivate other employees by showing them than they will benefit directly by creating something valuable. Would yo
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Your incentive to invent while being employed is staying employed. Companies fund R&D so that they can profit from the discoveries.
That doesn't mean the company cannot share a portion of the profits from those discoveries with the people who made them possible.
Sure, but you're thinking a bit narrowly.
Suppose you hire 100 engineers and have them work 40 hours per week on 10 projects with 10 engineers per project.
All 100 work hard. 9/10 projects fail and make no money. The last project makes a huge fortune.
The company owners take the loss on the 9/10 projects that failed. They make a big profit on the 1/10 projects that succeed. All 100 engineers get a steady salary so they get no risk/reward either way.
Sure, it is customary to give a modest bonus/etc to those
No risk = No reward (Score:2)
Sure, it is customary to give a modest bonus/etc to those who succeed, but if all 100 engineers worked equally hard but most were just unlucky to be on the project that didn't work out, does it make sense to compensate the 10 on the successful project so much more? They all did what the
You are presuming that the engineers have no control over the success or failure of the project or that they have no role in determining the course of the project. You need to think of the engineer as more of an independent contractor rather than a salaried employee. It's the responsibility of the engineer to figure out whether they think they can create a valuable product or whether they are wasting their time. Fail fast if necessary. Find another company if this one is a dead end. A salesman can't se
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But you do lose your house. You'll get fired for failure, fail to pay mortgage, and the bank takes the house.
The employees are already forced to share the risks. There is no option to just do your job and not worry about being fired. If anything, employees have more risk than companies which, after all, are too big to be allowed to fail. But your sorry ass
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Employees are at risk of no longer earning income. Entrepreneurs are at risk of losing money they SPENT on the business. There is a key difference.
However, I do agree with most of what you said and there does need to be a balance. I just don't think the solution to a broken patent system is either abolishing it entirely or breaking it in an entirely different way.
Reduce patent terms and make them domain-specific. Ditto for copyright. Maintain ownership of each the way they are today (work for hire and
Re:Hang on WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
What actually happened was that the guy invented said blue led (on a standard engineer salary), which pretty quickly allowed his company to rake in tens of millions. When he politely complained that the invention which made them huge profits had earned him exactly nothing, his boss basicaly said:
"Oh, that's right. Here is a $300 bonus. Have fun at the bar!"
The problem he is complaining about when he talks about education is probably linked to the pyramidal hierarchy that's ingrained in Japanese people from kindergarten : whatever you do, the group leader is at the forefront. In research, that basically means a department director is the first credited for any discovery, except if he is generous enough to allow whoever did the actual work be awarded the authorship. Considering this also works in case of problems (the one in charge is the one taking the blame), you could say it is a game of give and take.
However in this case the profit only accrued to the boss/owners (I don't know whether the company was privately owned or not), with pretty much nothing for the guy at the source of it all. That's a breach of the unwritten rules of Japanese social interactions, but standard workings of Japanese society would have had him take it and shut up, too bad form him that his higher-ups were dicks. He decided he wouldn't.
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And herein lies the great virtue and vice of capitalism: the assignment of profits to the owner of capital, rather than the one who made the capital useful.
It doesn't have anything to do with fairness - it's just the way capitalism is set up. There are many good and bad things with this setup; most of the good came about during the time of physical wealth; most of the bad is sho
Control of resources including capital (Score:2)
And herein lies the great virtue and vice of capitalism: the assignment of profits to the owner of capital, rather than the one who made the capital useful.
Close but I don't think that is quite correct. Capitalism rewards control of resources necessary to utilize capital, of which capital ownership itself is merely one. Things like client relationships, product development, labor availability, and the like all can make or break whether capital can be employed productively to generate profits.
Sales people tend to be well compensated because they generate capital and they have historically structured their compensation (via commissions) to participate in the u
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There's a bit of a difference. He now resides in California where the company would be required to spell out IP assignment in an employment contract. It's not uncommon for those contracts to spell out a profit sharing agreement to entice additional development. It's not uncommon for these guys to be serial inventors with many patents to their name. In some states, lack of spelling it out means the employee is free to keep the patent and the company would simple have non-transferable royalty free rights.
T
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Things may be different in Japan, but you do not understand how this works in the US. Investment in research doesn't mean you own the work.
Having a solid IP assignment agreement with a scientist and a strong cultural and political expectation of ownership is what determines who owns IP. Without a legal IP assignment contract (wording which has survived a court challenge, and an agreement in which both parties benefit - this is where investment comes in), the work IS owned by the inventor.
In terms of invest
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To make a car analogy: if I pay gas money for a shared long trip in your car, do I own the car at the end of the journey? The amount risked (gas money) by the employer is a drop in the bucket compared to the value of the invention (car).
So? That meager f**ing living wage is nowhere
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Your car analogy is miles off.
The employer provides you with the car. The training on how to drive the car. The insurance for if something happens while in the car. They have others make sure there is a road for you to travel down. They make sure the car is filled with fuel as you need it. They define the destination and they provide the maps (some maps are better than others). Then on top of that they pay you to drive the car. When you get to the destination and it turns out to be way better than exp
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Right, providing a chair, a table, a computer, some lab equipment and 3-4 year salary constitutes the majority value of the invention (car).
Wait, which corp trains you to invent stuff? They don't even teach you the basics of the field. You have to learn everything on your time and your dime.
Your analogy pertains more to a low-skilled taxi driver, not an inventor.
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I have no problem with corp$ making too much dough and buying yachts and jets. I do have a problem with them taking $$$ that is more than their fair share -- keeping the whole loaf of bread to themselves and tossing a few crumbs to the person who was actually responsible for bringing that bread is completely wrong.
Agreed, many inventions
Level of risk (Score:2)
Inventions are rare. Corporations invest in an uncountable number of inventions that go absolutely nowhere.
That's not a logical argument against post-hoc compensating the talented folks who do create the inventions that actually do turn out to be worth millions. If you have a star player, you pay that player according to their contributions. To do otherwise is both unfair and disrespectful. There is no reason this company could not provide this guy a very substantial bonus as thanks for his contributions if the invention really was worth millions.
Put it this way. Would you work hard for an employer who you k
America is worse. (Score:4, Informative)
This is just idiotic. In America if you're work for hire the company owns your patents unless you invent them on your own time using your own resources. He's a damned fool, in America he wouldn't have gotten a cent if he'd tried to sue his employer for royalties unless his contract expressly granted royalties.
America is worse. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm afraid you need to look up his case. His employers said "stop" and ended the funding, especially of technician time and equipment. He then completed the work on his own time, out of his own salary, with equipment and materials he bought. The company did wind up owning the patent. But this is a case where the inventor did, indeed, act as a dedicated scientist and engineer, not merely as an employee under managerial direction.
Wait - I think I've heard about this (Score:2)
The dude didn't happen to work for Serano Genomics, perchance?
Intuition tells me..... (Score:2)
That if you are getting a salary while doing this research, then unless you signed a clause in your contract upon being hired, should be going to the corporation.
You basically whored out your "inventivness" to them.....If the company can't sue you to to recoup the money it spent paying you if you develop nothing of value, you should basically not expect a % of something of value.
Like everything else in life, the more risk you take, the better the reward if you succeed.
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ut how is the US any better? Is Europe any better?
You could always read the article to answer these questions you have. Nakamura describes some relevant differences between the Japanese and US approaches.
Re:Well, its certainly on the right track. (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly this means that the patent money is not a great catalyst for the invention he made.
How do you come to this conclusion? It is more likely that he worked on research in the hopes that he will share the profits that it generates. Think of it as stock based compensation. You would work before you see the money, if you do good, you will see money when the stock price increases.
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Researchers should be compensated and motivated by their salary, not by the chance on a patent.
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And probably gave him a small year end bonus, whereas the upper executives are getting millions each in compensation from the same invention. Even if an executive is doing an awful job and gets fired they still keep the gold. What is the problem with *sharing* the benefit? No one is asking that the individual inventor receive all the benefits and the company gets none, yet this law is going the other way so that the inventor will get no tangible benefits other than an attaboy.
It is not necessarily the mo
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The main purpose of a CEO is to increase the value of the company. Therefore, stock options are a better incentive than salaries.
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I'm a bit confused. US law assigns no rights at all to inventors. How exactly is going abroad going to benefit Japanese inventors? Which countries are they supposed to go to?
In the US, you have some power to negotiate with your employer, or to choose among employers based on their patent assignment/reward policy. If you think your work is going to be very lucrative, you can ask for a share of the commercialization value.
Article 35 more or less does what a lot of people here are asking for: it requires companies to compensate the people actually responsible for an invention. The problem is that one has no idea whether an invention will actually be commercially successful or no
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It is much more than an evolutionary change, really, it is like jumping 1m high vs jumping 3m high.
And your argument is flawed : if everyone think "someone else will do it" then no one will do it.
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Whole teams had been working on it for 3-4 decades with no real advances. The materials he used to make his LEDs work had been considered decades back but no one could get them to work and all research on it had basically stopped. He got it to work because he did all the research by himself and produced the materials himself as well so he could see the complete picture. The research teams in the US were so specialized they couldn't solve it.
This guy basically invented the first high power dark green LED, th