INVENTOR LAWSUITS THREATEN JAPANESE INNOVATION

INVENTOR LAWSUITS THREATEN JAPANESE INNOVATION

In a recent Reuters article, the author (Kiyoshi Takenaka) examines the impact of the recent Japanese inventor/employee lawsuits that have awarded billions of Yen to disgruntled "employee inventors".  These employee inventors are entitled to "appropriate compensation" under Japanese law, but the term is ill defined and has become the basis for employee inventors to sue current and former employers for compensation for their inventions.  Unsurprisingly the trend has become of singular importance to Japanese technology firms.

A sampling of these lawsuits includes:

• Seasoning maker Ajinomoto Co. was ordered to pay nearly 190 million yen for a former employee's invention on a production method for the artificial sweetener called aspartame.
• The same court said Shuji Nakamura's invention (the blue light-emitting diode (LED)) was worth about 60 billion yen to his former employer, chemical maker Nichia Corp. Nakamura was awarded 20 billion yen-the highest remuneration ever by a court in Japan.
• Hitachi Ltd. was ordered to pay around 163 million yen to a former employee for the transfer of patent rights on innovative technologies for reading data on optical disks. 
• A former Toshiba Corp employee filed suit demanding 1 billion yen from the electronics giant in connection with the invention of the flash memory semiconductor, which he claimed is his creation.

These type of lawsuits will have a chilling effect on technology in Japan as companies will never be completely sure if they have complied with the broad and diaphanous "appropriate compensation" standard.

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<date name="when" value="Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:39:54 GMT