The Register
reports that Hitachi has lost a patent dispute before the Japanese Supreme Court. Former Hitachi employee Seiji Yonezawa conducted research that is now used on reading optical disks, including CDs and DVDs and has been awarded 163 million yen (£733,000). Hitachi has criticised the decision.
The IPKat is split on this issue. It seems a bit rough to deprive creative employees from the benefit of a job well-done, and it also deprives them on an incentive to do their research above and beyond the call of duty. At the same time though, researchers are employed to do research, so it makes sense that their employees [
correction:
employers] should be able to benefit from this.
