My Email Today to Dr Shūji Nakamura

choi

(1) I chuckled upon reading

Dennis Normile, Nobel Laureate Shuji Nakamura Is Still Angry at Japan. Science, Jan 19, 2015 (blog).
news.sciencemag.org/asia/2015/01/nobel-laureate-shuji-nakamura-still-angry-japan

(2) Having come from Taiwan, I have lived in US for three decades. Though I am no longer a biologist, I went to University of Illinois at Chicago (not Urbana- Champaign). My first decade in US was spent breathing biology.   
(3) I agree with you in all. However I am afraid I must disagree with you on Article 35. Though I am not familiar with US patent law, ordinary people (including me) know there is no counterpart in US. In other words, an employer in US does not have to reward at all an employee who may be the sole contributor to the patent, which the employer will hold. In addition, before an employee is hired, he or she will be asked to sign a contract which always cover the assignment of ownership of intellectual property to generate. That was why I was not keen on obtaining a job but sought in vain to be my own boss.

(4) Case in point, which is well known among biologists. Two essays in chronological order.

(a) Kary B Mullis, Nobel Lecture. Dec 8, 1993
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... mullis-lecture.html
("("My friend Ron Cook * * * was the only person I remember during that summer who shared my enthusiasm for the reaction. * * * Perhaps I should have followed his advice, but then things would have worked out differently and I probably wouldn't be here on the beach in La Jolla writing this, which I enjoy. Maybe I would be rich in Tahiti. He suggested one night at his house that since no one at Cetus had taken it seriously, I should resign my job, wait a little while, make it work, write a patent, and get rich. By rich he wasn't imagining $300000000. Maybe one or two. * * * I responded weakly to Ron's suggestion. I had already described the idea at Cetus, and if it turned out to be commercially successful they would have lawyers after me forever. Ron was not sure that Cetus had rights on my ideas unless they were directly related to my duties. I wasn't sure about the law, but I was pretty happy working at Cetus and assumed innocently that if the reaction worked big time I would be amply rewarded by my employer")
(b) Fore J Jr et al, The Effects of Business Practices, Licensing, and Intellectual Property on Development and Dissemination of the Polymerase Chain Reaction: Case Study. Journal of Biomedical Discovery & Collaboratin, 1: 7 (online publication July 3, 2006)
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523369/
("PCR has earned huge sums of money in royalties for the various rights-holders while also becoming one of the most important research tools in molecular biology. In addition to Kary Mullis' $10,000 bonus and the $300 million earned by Cetus in selling the PCR patents, it is estimated that Roche has earned upwards of $2 billion in royalties from licensing the technology")

In a nutshell, all Dr Mullis received from Cetus Corp for his invention was $10,000, which Cetus by no means was obliged to pay.
(5) My two cents is you are too harsh on Japan on this point.
(6) There is no need for you to reply, to save your precious time. Best regards.