Re: Under-Appreciated Gems of Scientific Epistemology

From: kevincar (kevindotcar_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: 28 Jul 2004 13:34:02 -0700

Uncle Al <UncleAl0@hate.spam.net> wrote in message news:<40FDC0EF.CD548CAC@hate.spam.net>...
> Jeff Lanfield wrote:
> >
> > I am writing a paper on how new ideas gain acceptance in science.
>
> Reproducible empirical demonstration by despised and undeserving
> discoverers.
>
> Kary Mullis won a 1993 Nobel Prize subsequent to a boring
> late-night drive down Highway 128 to Anderson Valley (Mendocino
> County, CA) in April 1983. Millis got a $10K bonus for his
> invention. Cetus sold his PCR patent to Hoffman-LaRoche for
> $300,000,000.
>
> I'd say a 0.0033% bonus was a bit slim, wouldn't you? "despised
> and undeserving"
>
 [---]

Heh-
I would have dreamed of such a bonus.
When I worked at a company that I won't name, but
it rhymes with "sitting blank," we had to sign away all of
our patentable work for $1 - Well, I wrangled a patent
or two (One in the U.S. and one in India)... And I
never even got the frickin dollar.

AFAIK, when you're doing your job and getting paid
for it, any patentable works are solely the property
of the employer because legally you are merely the
agent of the employer, unless there are prior legally
provable agreements that were made, in which case the
inventor is not and agent, but enters "contractee"
status - guess how often THAT happens in corporate
America :-/.

So, you'll probably find you'll have a pretty
big list of "despised discoverers"... at least
monetarily - I'm guessing somewhere around a half
a million or so, maybe most of them actually living.

The only thing I personally have found that patent
inventorship bestowed upon me as an agent of an
employer is that of tenure - Hell, I know that does
count for something, but you won't get rich off it,
obviously.

K.C

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Under-Appreciated Gems of Scientific Epistemology
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  • Re: Under-Appreciated Gems of Scientific Epistemology
    ... > Reproducible empirical demonstration by despised and undeserving ... our patentable work for $1 - Well, ... agent of the employer, ...
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  • Re: Under-Appreciated Gems of Scientific Epistemology
    ... > Reproducible empirical demonstration by despised and undeserving ... our patentable work for $1 - Well, ... agent of the employer, ...
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