87 Million Yen Awarded to Japanese Employee-Inventor

According to the The Asahi Shimbun on July 27, 2006, Toshiba Corp will pay 87 million yen ($749,000) to former employee Fujio Masuoka who invented flash memory while working at the company. Masuoka had sought about 1.1 billion yen while Toshiba had offered about 6 million yen for the technology that reportedly led to 10 billion yen in royalties through 2002.

In 2005 Shuji Nakamura received 600 million yen from Nichia Corp. for his invention of the long-elusive blue light-emitting diode.

In 2004, Masayoshi Naruse received 150 million yen from Naruse for his development of a production method for the artificial sweetener "aspartame."

Read more on Japan's Article 35 of the Patent Law regarding employee-inventor compensation.