BLUE LED = 20 BILLION

BLUE LED = 20 BILLION YEN ($189 MILLION)

Shuji Nakamura, the Japanese electronics engineer who invented the 'Blu-ray' technology responsible for producing the blue LED, was awarded the full amount he had been seeking from his former company, Nichia Corp. 

The technology has been widely adopted for color displays on cellphones, personal digital assistants and automobile instruments worldwide.  The breakthrough is also the basis for a blue laser needed in the 'Blu-ray Disc', a next-generation, high-capacity format for digital versatile discs currently in development by Sony Corp and others. 

The award is the largest in Japanese history and comes on the heels of a 20,000 YEN offer from Nichia. 

This is apparently not a new phenomena as Japanese patent law requires that employees who transfer intellectual property rights to their employer receive "reasonable remuneration".  There is no such provision in U.S. patent law.

As a somewhat related aside, the Japanese patent office will be hiring 500 additional patent examiners over the next 5 years in order to decrease the time it takes to obtain an issued patent from well over 2 years to several months.  This would be a very welcome change and a policy that should be emulated by all the patent offices.

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<date name="when" value="Sat, 31 Jan 2004 21:50:34 GMT