other companies’ services. Commissioner of Patents
and Trademarks Bruce A. Lehman, a copyright ex-
pert, scheduled meetings at Silicon Valley in Califor-
nia to discuss software patents. Critics complained
that examiners lacked computer educational cre-
dentials and did not recognize public domain soft-
ware applications. Lehman and USPTO officials ter-
minated Compton’s patent and sought examiners
who had experience programming computers or ad-
vanced degrees.
Software patents in the 1990’s shaped legal pre-
cedents for later inventions. When the USPTO de-
nied a software patent to Mary Ellen Zurko, she ap-
pealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit. In May, 1998, that court
stated the USPTO should not have rejected Zurko’s
application. Commissioner Lehman responded
that the appeals court should not counter the au-
thority of the USPTO’s examiners, noting several
hundred examiners held doctorates and were com-
petent engineers and scientists. The U.S. Supreme
Court heardLehman v. Zurkoin November, 1998.
On June 10, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-
3 against Zurko, with Justice Stephen Breyer stating
that the appeals court had ignored an earlier law re-
quiring judges to respect governmental experts un-
less they had performed maliciously or negligently.
Inventors worried the USPTO might be victorious
in all application appeals. Other 1990’s court cases
considered how inventions such as Amazon.com’s
one-click ordering function impacted e-commerce
competition.
Infringement Lawsuits Inventions’ financial suc-
cess triggered patent infringement, resulting in eco-
nomic losses for patent owners who often initiated
legal action against people and corporations they ac-
cused of stealing their patented devices or processes.
Patent infringers frequently targeted electronics
and pharmaceuticals. Approximately 50 percent
more infringement lawsuits were filed in 1990 com-
pared to 1980 statistics. Many of those lawsuits re-
sulted in large monetary reimbursements for royal-
ties inventors had been denied.
During the early 1990’s, Robert Kearns, of Detroit,
Michigan, received multimillion-dollar settlements
from U.S. and international automobile manufac-
turers who had installed intermittent windshield
wipers identical to those he had patented in the early
1960’s and shown to Ford Motor Company engi-
neers in Detroit. At that time, Kearns thought Ford
would purchase rights to use his invention, but he
later realized that manufacturer and others had in-
corporated his invention in vehicles without his per-
mission and sued.
Other notable 1990’s patent infringement cases
included the October, 1990, ruling that Eastman Ko-
dak Company pay Polaroid Corporation $909.4 mil-
lion, the greatest infringement award at that time,
because it had infringed on Polaroid’s instant pho-
tography patents. Two years later, a court ordered
Minolta Camera Company to pay Honeywell Incor-
porated $127 million for using aspects of Honey-
well’s auto-focus lens patents. In 1997, Raymond
Damadian of Fonar Corporation received $103 mil-
lion from General Electric for using his magnetic
resonance imaging. Gilbert Hyatt’s 1990 micropro-
cessor patent, based on a 1970 application, upset the
computer industry when Hyatt demanded royalties,
claiming he was the first inventor to develop a micro-
processor.
In the early 1990’s, U.S. patent and copyright
owners filed over one hundred lawsuits to protest
Japanese manufacturers who they claimed had in-
fringed on their intellectual property. For example,
in 1993, Eastman Kodak Company began legal pro-
ceedings stating Sony Corporation had copied in-
formation from Kodak’s patent describing video
recording technology. Many of the Japanese defen-
dants filed countersuits, resulting in tensions that
threatened trade between those countries. U.S. offi-
cials discussed how to control infringement with Jap-
anese and other foreign leaders. Trade incentives
proved effective to convince other nations to moni-
tor patent infringement.
Jerome Lemelson’s 1990’s infringement lawsuits
were among the most controversial. He received sev-
eral hundred million dollars from Japanese, Euro-
pean, and U.S. automobile companies and parts
companies that had appropriated the bar-coding
technology he invented in the 1950’s. His critics re-
ferred to Lemelson’s patents as submarine patents,
because information in his applications remained
unknown for decades. They insinuated Lemelson
had delayed patent approval to claim infringement
after manufacturers used similar inventions, an ar-
gument which stimulated patent reform. Lemelson
dismissed that criticism as absurd.The Nineties in America Inventions 459