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James "father of the LCD" Fergason gets $500K award, defends patent-holders

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.