Inventor of integrated circuit dies

[paul_pci]

Here's the story link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050621/ap_on_hi_te/obit_kilby

[jocko_nc]

It makes me wonder why an individual and an individual company that developed such a HUGE technological advancement does not own the world, the electronics industry, or even its own market. Integrated circuits are the backbone of the world we know.

I know Texas Instruments is cutting-edge with programmable DSP and DLP products, but look at some other tech plays.

Texas Instruments 47 B

Intel 168 B
QCOM 57 B
MSFT 270 B
Cisco 126 B
Yahoo 52 B
Google 80 B

I suspect the nature of business has changed. Imagine if Texas Instruments had been able to copyright its groundbreaking work such that no competitor would be able to likewise build an integrated circuit? A la Microsoft. Imagine if, for the past 50 years, there had been no other development in integrated circuits. Imagine if the propriety of the basic technology had been leveraged to control all applications of the technology. Texas Instruments would be worth 2000 billion and all other electronic manufacturers and applications would not exist. Yet, such a basic and critical technology was somehow adopted by others and became the ultimate mass-produced good in the world today. Competition is a good thing for all involved. This inventor and his company no doubt made decent money, but he is no Bill Gates. Texas Instruments is no Microsoft. Why was Texas Instruments not able to monopolize the market? What has changed in business from then to now? If Microsoft management had been running Texas Instruments at the time, they would indeed own the world.

Just a thought...

jocko

[paul_pci]

I'm totally on board with what you're saying and that actually came to mind when I read the story. Perhaps the day of the benevolent inventor, he or she who wishes to contribute to the collective of humanity is gone. Remember Ben Franklin who refused to patent his stove? then some jackass came along and patented Frankin's stove under his name.

[jocko_nc]

I was wondering if anyone else would think that... The most influential inventor we never heard of!

I'm not preaching the benevolent inventor or the overall good of man. Free enterprise of free individuals is the best economic approach yet conceived. I recall Franklin was quite wealthy is his time, a celebrity, a thinker, a leader, and a patriot. A pretty big guy.

I do think something is out of whack in our society. Innovators need to be protected in their businesses, but I do think some of our valuations (and expectations) are excessive. Tremendous wealth overnite at all costs. Pharm and Tech come to mind. Vioxx should never have gone to market. It did, and the manufacturer made many billions in a couple of years. Boom. Turns out it, however, it was not safe and reasonable testing would have shown (and did show) as much. Now the lawyers get to take the billions back. For a single individual (MSFT) with a single product (an arguably stolen product at that) to have amassed more wealth than all of Eastern Europe combined is ridiculous. Since his product is copyrighted and not patented, he is protected, I think, for 90 years. He has a monopoly on PC's and, leveraged correctly, will for all time. My decendents in one hundred years will probably have little choice but to use a Microsoft product in whatever exists at that time. He has no viable competition.

We had robber-barons and monopolies in the earlier industrial age. Anti-trust and organized labor changed all that. We had a market crash. I think we are looking at similar excess right now, there will be corrections.

jocko

[hermanv]

If memory serves (and it often doesn't) the research TI was doing was funded by the space program (probably military). Severe vibration from rocket launches was destroying electronics and they wanted a way to reduce this problem. The IC invention fixed it by making the mass of the interconnects so small that the 300g vibration didn't bother them.

If I am correct, the invention would not be TI's to keep exculsively. This was in those days before our government just handed out blank checks to corporations.

[jocko_nc]

The Lady and I were discussing this last night over a couple of adult beverages...

She made the point about antibiotics, polio, and smallpox. Wow, if ever there was a list of inventions that changed the world, these would have to be on the top. Literally, life and death across the world. Trying to recall history without resorting to Yahoo, the names Flemming and Salk come to mind. Both made a good living and are great historical figures. However, I do not recall either leveraging the fact that they had the key to saving tens of millions of lives to create a massive empire. They could have. They could have owned the world.

If ever there is a basic breakthrough in cancer treatment (naive though it is to consider all cancer as related to each other), I wonder who would come up with it and how they would handle the ethics of exploiting the knowledge. That would be a big event.

jocko

[MomurdA]

I think the way it is now, with so much capital needed to make new discoveries, the individual who makes the discovery does not get credit for it if he/she is using company equipment and $ to make that discovery. That is why so many new inventions are copytrighted by corporations, they are the only ones who can afford to make them. Sure the company might give the employee a nice bonus, but i guarantee they take all the publicity and billions of $$ for their invention. I think i even vaguely remember a story where a scientist was pissed that whoever he worked for was going to charrge exorbitant amounts of money for something he discovcerd, so he took em to court. He lost was the only thing i remember.

[hermanv]

Some patentable ideas cost next to nothing to invent, but it takes around $10,000 to hire a patent attorney and file. You can do it without the attorney but in that case, your patent may not protect you very well.

A couple employers back, I worked for a company where all employees would be called to a meeting every year or two and told how valuable patents were to the company's financial health. I was awarded a patent while employed there and to show me their overwhelming gratitude they paid me one dollar. How's that for an incentive?

On the other side, the guy that invented the ratchet wrench for Craftsman was awarded millions by a court who said Sears took advantage of him. Life sure can be a crapshoot.

[jocko_nc]

I have an intellectual propety clause that states that any patentable ideas I come up with while employed here belong to the company. That seems only fair. Naturally, this clause would only reasonably apply to ideas related to my/our field of business.

A buddy left the company a while back and has since been granted several patents. None has panned out for much yet, but he is a sharp guy and makes a living. $10K is about right, though you can start the process and get a provisional for a lot less. The trademark and patent office is swamped right now. Patents are being granted for some loosely-defined "technacal innovations", such as how catsup and mustard are arranged on a burger. The evaluators are overwhelmed and may be only moderately versed in the technologies involved. Shoddy patents are being granted and some are being overturned. It is a little out of control. Like everything else, hire an attorney, throw everything against the wall, and see what sticks.

jocko