Lee De Forest inventor of the Audion tube, also called both the 'De Forest valve', and the 'triode valve', which allowed the amplification of radio waves so they could travel long distances was, in 1913, sued for mail fraud by the Attorney-General of the USA.
De Forest had sent out letters to potential investors stating that the human voice would one day be transmitted across the Atlantic, claims which the prosecutor described as
'absurd and deliberately misleading statements'.
Two years later, in 1915, the first voice transmission across the Atlantic from Arlington, Virginia, to Paris, France occurred.
De Forest was acquitted but, saddled with legal bills which threatened to bankrupt him, sold his Audion tube/triode valve patent to AT&T for $50,000
SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND: Monday's Poll is:
What was the best decision ever taken in the semiconductor industry?
how about a poll on the best & worst contributions to the semi industry made by the legal profession ? I imagine one list will be longer than the other ....
Great idea grumpy, it would take some thought. Maybe refusing to uphold the rights on the original second sources on the X86 architecture - Siemens, NEC, Harris etc - could be one of the worst, as it's saddled us with a quasi-monopoly in the PC processor business for 25 years. Another lot of bad ones are all the decisions in the multiplicity of Rambus lawsuits because not one of them seems to have settled the dispute! As for a good legal decision, I've wracked my brains without coming up with one. Now you've got me going.