You filed a lawsuit against Toshiba in 2004, alleging that you deserved compensation for your discovery. You're not the only Japanese inventor who has felt that way. Why did you sue Toshiba, and where does your suit stand now?
I can't say much about the case. My lawyer is handling it. I didn't ask for royalties. I asked that I be paid 1 billion yen [around $9 million], which I felt was my share of what the invention was worth. The Tokyo District Court hasn't reached a verdict.
I never received more than a pittance for my discovery. Yet, thanks to flash-memory chips, Toshiba is one of Japan's only thriving semiconductor makers. I'm glad Toshiba is profiting off [flash]. But I sued because I wanted to make a point: Unless Japanese companies treat their engineers better, this country will have no future. If they copied U.S. companies' incentives for engineers, Japanese tech companies might be better off than they are, now that Taiwanese and Korean companies have caught up. Many top execs in Japan just can't relate to the engineers.
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The above was copy pasted from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_14/b3978022.htm
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