Hmmm I smell a shareholder lawsuit...

Lets get this straight. If there is value in IP (Intelectual Property) and at the time of filing a patent, the "inventor" is a Microsoft employee, then why wasn't the patent filed via Microsoft?

In short, this conversion of IP to a non Microsoft entity would be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit since the IP should belong to Microsoft and the value of the patent should be Microsoft's.

Not that I'm pro-microsoft, it just seems that we're seeing theft by conversion and the shareholder is being left out in the cold.

MS to sue Gates?

>"Gates is also named on a further two Searete patents pre-dating his Microsoft departure."

Of course, any *other* employee of MS who was discovered to have been working for a competitor in their own time would be sued for breach of the non-compete clause in their contract of employment, and MS would also attempt to assert ownership of the patents (which, as is common in IT industry employment contracts, belong to your employer regardless of whether you work for and submit them on your own time or the firm's).

Bet they'll make an exception in this case, though.

Goodfellas?

The title of the PDF is 'The Goodfellas'. Anyone who has seen the movie now knows what kind of business these guys are really in...

quidquid it est, timeo danaos et dona ferentes

yep, even old Gaius Julius new what to expect from gifts as those more than 2000 years ago :-)

@Volker

You were doing really well with your quotation of the original Latin phrase that inspired the English saying "Beware Greeks bearing gifts", but then you totally blew it with your reference to Julius Caesar, who neither had any involvement with the Trojan wars, nor was the author of Virgil's Aeneid. (Hint: *Virgil's* Aeneid; the clue is in the name).