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Re: MSFT patents "PageUp/PageDown" function
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:10:25 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: "Ronald J Riley \(RJR-com\)" <rjr () rjriley com> Date: September 8, 2008 10:27:34 AM EDT To: <dave () farber net> Subject: RE: [IP] Re: MSFT patents "PageUp/PageDown" functionYes, I do have facts to back it up. Review the Hall of Fame inductees. A study done by Paul Heckel about a decade ago demonstrated that about 70% of the inductees were inducted for inventions produced while they were either independent or academic. I have appended the summary of that study below my
sig file.Bell Labs is long gone. And today few companies do much serious long term
development.I was at a presentation at the Smithsonian Lemelson-MIT center some years ago where some clown who had been from Bell Labs did a presentation where he claimed that the days of independent inventors were past. He asserted that
all inventions were team efforts. The problem is that he was making his presentation to a group ofcommercially successful independent inventors and we all knew he was full of
it. Independent inventors were pretty much the norm in the early days of our country and after so many of the big companies became bloated dinosaursdownsized and either ousted or drove all the long term planners out we are
once again doing the same.The way corporate politics works is that while every invention is conceived in one mind lots of people whose contributions may be minimal want in on the
glory.Dr. Damadian has been an associate for many years, he catalyzed the creation of the MRI industry and managed to withstand twenty years of sleazy tactics by patent pirating large entities. Wilson Greatbatch invented the pacemaker and started a whole industry. Gordon Gould did the same, and as I recall he told me that AT&T and GM were the two parties who did their best to steal
his invention with thirty years of abusive litigation.As I see it AT&T and the former Bells have been bad apples for decades and today are jokes. They have consistently failed to adopt new technologies
until late in the game. I think that this was in large part driven by a milk existing customers mentality. And another funny is that in spite of big business attempts to turn thepatent system into a king's sport with patent deform, it is the independent inventor community who keeps torpedoing those efforts. We do so in honor of
Jerry Lemelson. I have had the pleasure of knowing every inventor I mentioned. Ronald J. Riley, Speaking only on my own behalf. Affiliations: President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org Senior Fellow - www.patentPolicy.org President - Alliance for American InnovationCaretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder
Paul Heckel Washington, DC Direct (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 9 pm EST. http://web.archive.org/web/20040211231036/ipcreators.org/Inventor_Groups/Hal l_of_Fame/nihfstat.htm Intellectual Property Creators (Put me on your mailing list) Most Hall of Fame inductees were entrepreneurs A preliminary analysis of the National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees shows that most of the were entrepreneurs. The breakdown is as follows: Entrepreneurial Inventors 55 53% Independent Inventors who licensed 5 4% Total Independent Inventors 60 57% Academic Inventors 16 15% Corporate Inventors 29 28% Total 105 100% The inventors were classified into four different categories. Entrepreneurial inventors. These are independent inventors who were also entrepreneurs who started their own companies to invent or commercialize their invention. Many of these companies survive today. Licensing Inventors. These are independent inventors who licensed theirinventions to others. They are similar to Entrepreneurial inventors in that they took the fundamental financial and technical risks, but different in
that they did not create a company to market the inventions.Corporate Inventors. These are inventors who were hired by corporations to
invent and their employer took the financial risk. Academic Inventors. These are inventors who worked in academia either universities or non-profit research labs. The inventor inventors who are entrepreneurs are: 1. Whitney 1765 Miller & Whitney 2. Morse 1791 ?? licensed 3. Goodyear 1800 Goodyear Tire and Rubber??? 4. Ericcson 1803 ????? 5. Deere 1804 Deere and Company 6. McCormick 1809 International Harvester??? 7. Otis 1811 Otis Elevator 8. Westinghouse 1846 Westinghouse 9. Edison 1847 General Electric 10. Bell 1847 A T & T 11. Burbank 1849 Independent 12. Berliner 1851 Licensed founded Deutsch Grammaphone 13. Eastman 1854 Eastman Kodak 14. Burroughs 1857 Burroughs Corporation (Now part of Unisys) 15. Sperry 1860 Sperry Rand (now part of Unisys) 16. Hollerith 1860 IBM 17. Ford 1863 Ford Motor Company 18. Hall 1863 Aluminum Company of America 19. Baekeland 1863 Bakelite Corp. 20. Dow 1866 Dow Chemical 21. Wright Bros 1867 Wright Aircraft, predecessor of CurtisWright 22. deForest 1873 Independent 23. Marconi 1874 American Marconi, predecessor of RCA 24. Kettering 1876 Delco (Sold to GM) 25. Carrier 1876 Carrier 26. Cottrell 1877 27. Goddard 1882 Licensed 28. Sikorsky 1889 Sikorsky Aircraft 29. Armstrong 1890 Licensed RCA (twice), FM Entrepreneur 30. Houdry 1892 Oxy-Catalyst 31. Julian 1899 Julian Laboratories 32. Beckman 1900 Beckman Instruments 33. Lear 1902 Learjet 34. Edgerton 1903 Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier 35. Alford 1904 Alford Manufacturing Company 36. Farnsworth 1906 Farnsworth Television 37. Carlson 1906 Xerox 38. Parker 1906 Parker Instrument 39. Land 1909 Polaroid 40. Hewlett 1913 Hewlett Packard 41. Parsons 1913 Parsons Corporation 42. Moyroud,Hogonnet 1914 ??? 43. Greene 1918 Safe Flight Instrument Corp. 44. Greatbatch 1919 Greatbatch Enterprises 45. Wang 1920 Wang Labs 46. Kilby 1923 TI 47. Djerissi 1923 Alza 48. Olson 1926 Digital Equipment 49. Noyce 1927 Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel 50. Damadian 1936 Fonar 50 51. Shockley 1908 Shockley Semiconductor, forerunner of all US semiconductor firms. 52. Gould 192053. Rines 1922 US Army Signal Corps Founded Franklin Pierce Law School.
54. Bird 1921 55. Stanley 1858 Stanley Electric Manufacturing The Independent Inventors who licensed their inventions are: 1. Otto 1832 ??? 2. Morganthaller 1854 ??? 3. Tesla 1856 licensed 4. Diesel 1858 licensed 5. Williams 1886 6. Maiman 1927 Hughes (worked as a consultant to Hughes) The academic inventors are: 1. Pasteur 1822 Ecole Normale 2. Carver 1864 Tuskegee 3. Hazen Brown 1885 New York State Dept. of Health 4. Moyer 1899 US Dept. of Agriculture 5. Fermi 1901 ? University of Chicago (Szilard) 6. Draper 1901 MIT 7. Lawrence 1901 UC Berkeley 8. Bennett 1903 various 9. Alverez 1911 UC Berkeley 10. Kolff 1911 Various medical schools 11. Townes 1915 Columbia 12. Forrester 1918 MIT 13. Blumberg,Millman 1925 Various 14. Ledley 1926 Various, founded DISCO. 15. Burckhalter, Seiwald 1912 16. Sheehan 1915 The Corporate inventors are: 1. Burton 1865 Standard Oil 2. Steinmetz 1865 GE 3. Coolidge 1873 GE 4. Alexanderson 1878 GE 5. Langumuir 1881 GE (Edison) 6. Zworkin 1889 RCA 7. Volwiler,Tabern 1893 Abbott 8. Carothers 1896 Dupont 9. Black 1898 AT&T 10. Stibitz 1904 Bell Labs 11. Tishler 1906 Merck 12. Hanford,Holmes 1908 Dupont 13. Plunkett 1910 Dupont 14. Plank, Rosinski 1915 Mobil Oil 15. Hillier 1915 RCA 16. Camras 1916 ITT Research 17. Sarett 1917 Merck 18. Rubin 1917 Wyeth 19. Elion 1918 Burroughs Wellcome 20. Hall 1919 GE 21. Ginsberg 1920 Ampex 22. Colton 1923 G. D. Searle 23. Rohrer,Binnig 1933 IBM 24. Conovor 1923 Pfizer 25. Mourer, Keck, Schultz 1924 Corning 26. Durant, Emmett, Ganellin 1934 SmithKline 27. Kwolek 1923 Dupont 28. Semon 1898 BF Goodrich -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 7:24 PM To: ip Subject: [IP] Re: MSFT patents "PageUp/PageDown" function ________________________________ From: Stagg_Newman () mckinsey com [mailto:Stagg_Newman () mckinsey com] Sent: Thu 8/28/2008 12:02 PM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] Re: MSFT patents "PageUp/PageDown" function Does Mr. Riley have any fact base to support his assertion below? "It is important to recognize that as large companies age they becomeincapable of producing significant inventions. Most significant inventions
come from independent and academic inventors"I would observe that many of the most important inventions and patents in
modern telecommunications and even computing (e.g. the transistors,fundamental patents on digital communications, fiber optics, ...) came from
Bell Labs. During that period "Ma Bell" was already many decades old.Fortunitously most of those patents were put in the public domain without
charge for use. Stagg Newman Former Bell Labs Engineer Fomer Chief Technologist, FCC ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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