thanks for the post Big Giant Head! Cyber Liberty, all y’all, ping to this post!
Cyber Liberty,
Any light you can shed on this: “...I’ve been reading elsewhere theories about the company that had all the employees on board, fast-something or other. They were developing very interesting electronics. Also, four of the five patent holders for some product of this company that held the potential to earn billions... were on board. Leaving ONE patent holder, and a huge incentive to disappear the rest. AND the patent was just approved. One owner stands to suddenly get very rich.”
Generally speaking anything invented on company time belongs to the company, regardless of the names on the patent.
Inventors typically get a nominal one-time cash award (usually $100), and maybe a plaque, and possibly a nice note in their personnel folder.
The “owner” in the sense of making money on the patent is the company, and they will make money regardless of the continued survival of the inventors.
The company has every incentive to keep the inventors alive and continuing to invent new stuff.
Malaysia Airlines Plane MH370 Latest Conspiracy Theory: Who were Freescale Semiconductor Experts on Board?
I haven't a clue about any "interesting electronics." I find them all interesting, even my corner of the world (but sometimes the end applications of my work surprises me). I can talk about the patent holders though, that's easy. If they developed something for the company, Freescale owns the patents and it doesn't matter if any or all the developers go away; we still own the patents. IOW, there is no financial incentive whatsoever to knock anybody off over them. I have friends that hold in excess of 50 patents each, and they don't get any kind of royalties because they've already been paid for their contributions.
The theory that somebody knocked off some engineers to get them off the patents does not hold water. Nobody is going to get rich off of this.