Yonezawa wins case against Hitachi over disc royalties

Further to the story of Nakamura and Nichia over the blue LED, the Supreme Court of Japan on Oct. 17, 2006 acknowledged the intellectual property rights of employees who invent products, and ordered Hitachi to pay ¥163 million, or $1.4 million, to a former worker, Seiji Yonezawa, who invented technology for reading compact discs and digital video discs while working at Hitachi.

Hitachi argued that it had already paid him for the patents.

For more on the blue LED story, refer to http://nesr.esci-va.com/materials/gan/maruska_story.asp