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A note for those who go looking for the technical details: there aren't many here. According to the article, Dr. Goodenough is being tight-lipped about his work.



I expect a note in the margin of one of his journals, discovered posthumously, "What a simple and elegant anode, the margin is too small to contain it."

I get that he is angry, but I worry that his anger may rob us of what he could do.


At the same time, he knows the power of copious notes proving the origination of the idea, so hopefully it won't be that bad.


Given what happened before you really can't fault him.


How much would he have gotten in royalties anyway? I don't think there are any billionaires who got there just through patent royalties, right?


It's rare for individuals, because a patent costs ~$25k to file and maintain, and the process takes ~5 years. Patents are narrow and taken out very early in the inventive process - so prone to being irrelevant or silly. The really valuable patents - fundamental ones - are particularly risky. This adds up to meaning that the mass insurance of corporate sponsorship is the only way for inventors to profit (marginally, and as a group).


The inventor of the B&D Workmate has earned a 3% royalty on 55 million sales. That's almost certainly over $100m. It's very rare to make a lot of money on a patent, but for something popular let alone ubiquitous it's entirely possible.




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