James "father of the LCD" Fergason gets $500K award, defends patent-holders
By Marc Perton 
posted May 5th 2006 4:15PM
posted May 5th 2006 4:15PM
You may not know who James Fergason is, but chances are you're reading these words on a screen that he helped to create. In the 1960s, while working at Westinghouse, Fergason developed many of the core technologies used in the production of LCD displays. In honor of his pioneering work, Fergason was just awarded the $500,000 MIT-Lemelson prize, an annual award for inventors. Fergason plans on donating the prize money to independent inventors, who he believes get the short end of the stick when dealing with large corporations. "I think that what they want to do is get something for nothing," he said." After working at Westinghouse, Fergason started his own business to commercialize LCD technologies, and helped create the first LCD watches, and today -- not surprisingly -- manages a company that licenses his patents to manufacturers.
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" Fergason plans on donating the prize money to independent inventors, who he believes get the short end of the stick when dealing with large corporations"
he is not only the "father of the LCD" he is also the father figure for every young scientist and researcher. He is the Robin Hood of science in our age. He should be awarded Nobel prize as soon as possible.
To be honest, I dont know how much that guy is worth as of right now (maybe a lot, who knows..), but if I was awarded $500,000 I would sure as hell keep all of it. I wish I was like that guy and realized that giving it to people who could benefit the most from it is the best thing to do.
This sounds really corny, but I think it would be awesome to be super rich, and give money to people who have great ideas, and watch them succeed... Knowing you'll probably never be mentioned, but knowing that you helped them accomplish their dream... awesome...
He should've used some of that money to get a less embarassing picture on Engaget...
In other news, I really like my monitor, so this guy's got my respect for damned sure.
"but if I was awarded $500,000 I would sure as hell keep all of it."
Which is why you're posting in comment section here and not inventing some world changing device that can save billions in energy costs alone, not to mention function better than existing display technology, and reduce the amount of materials (many toxic) used to manufacture it. But you go ahead and keep playing "scratch-offs" maybe you'll win it big and keep it all to yourself.
Patents for new, original and tangible inventions, like a liquid crystal matrix, are one thing. Patents for "one-click shopping" are quite another matter.
I hope he's not defending the latter, because there is a special kind of hell reserved for those who promote software patents.