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.
..."Before my lawsuit, [Nakamura said] the typical compensation fee [to inventors for assigning patents rights] was a special bonus of about $10,000. But after my litigation, all companies changed [their approach]. The best companies pay a few percent of the royalties or licensing fee [to the inventors]. One big pharmaceutical company pays $10 million or $20 million. 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]. In that case I recommend that Japanese employees go abroad."
There is a similar problem with copyright law in the U.S., where changes in the law in the 1970s and 1990s has made it almost impossible for copyrights to ever expire. The changes favor the corporations rather than the individual who might actually create the work.
Speaking of which, that's enough
Think of it as evolution in action. You can stay on one planet while some disaster takes it out. We have lots of choices of disaster, don't we? The human race can continue via those "space nutters".
Sure, we should try to avoid the disaster, etc., but planets are not forever.
Well, clearly *that's* an exception. I'd forgotten because in that case, I'd normally a a u's (.
We just had a story about low-level improvements to the BSD kernel, and now we get an article about chip-level features and how compilers use them?
Is this some sort of pre-April-Fools
If this keeps up, this site might start soaking up some of my time instead of simply being a place I check due to old habits.
Wait - you're using a computer to create content instead of just consume it?
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.