Former Sony employee, 58-year-old Hidehiro Kume invented a small optical pickup that is used to read and write discs in the PlayStation 2 and the original PlayStation. He didn’t feel Sony recognised his contributions, so he took him to court.
A lower Japanese court rejected Kume’s claim he deserved compensation, but the Japanese high court ruled that Sony must pay Kume ¥5.1 million (rough US$60,000) as a reward for his invention.
Kume was seeking ¥100 million.
“I thank the court for identifying some of my contributions to the company,” Kume said after the ruling. “But the company should have appreciated my contributions when I was an employee.”
Sony is currently examining the court’s decision to decide how it will proceed.
High court orders Sony to pay ex-employee 5.1 mil. yen for invention [iStock Analyst]
Mic
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 2:12 AM“He didn’t feel Sony recognised his contributions, so he took him to court.”
Wait, Sony’s a guy?
brent3000
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 8:51 AMThats what i thought when i read it.. I always thought of sony as a little b**** but i could be wrong…
plmko
Friday, August 20, 2010 at 4:06 PMErrr providing new compensation terms after the service work has been done is 100% retarded, and only in Japans archaic law system do we see this succeeding.
Compensation is provided to ensure a worker performs in good faith, so there will be an efficient amount agreed upon before a contract is signed. Therefore since he has agreed to the terms previously he must have known it was sufficient (otherwise why bother going through two generations of consoles).