Quotes
- Company managers know that the odds of an inventor being able to afford the costly litigation are less than one in ten; and even if the suit is brought, four times out of five the courts will hold the patent invalid. When the royalties are expected to exceed the legal expense, it makes good business sense to attack the patent... we don't recognize that the consequence of the legal destruction of patents is a decline in innovation...
- -Lemelson, 1975, in a Senate hearing investigating the innovation crisis.
- The American dream is that if the average American invents something novel and worthy of patenting, he'll find someone to license it. However, for most contemporary inventors, it hasn't worked out that way. The independent inventor today still has an extremely difficult time convincing corporations that he has a product which deserves to be on the market. Most companies have a tremendous resistance to ideas and technology developed on the outside.
- You cannot develop a reputation for somebody who gives up. You have to be known as a fighter for your rights. Otherwise, you'll never license anything...Even Thomas Edison had a tough time supporting and protecting his patents. He spent about $1.4 million, and this was around the turn of the century, when beer was a nickel.
Read more about this topic: Jerome H. Lemelson
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