Gene, i had a very interesting case with one of the biggies. They of course tried not to sign an NDA, so I said "Nada", but they were quite intrigued by the technology, they finally came back and suggested a "Chinese wall" approach, their legal department will sign an NDA, study the material and see if it in any way relates to ongoing work within the company, if not, the company will then execute a separate NDA. Well, six months later, the company itself signs the NDA. The interesting thing is that in the interim, the head of R&D rushed to file a patent, guessing from the little I had to disclose to "raise interest" as to what my approach might be (I found that three years later when he had to reference my own patent (g)). It turned out that what he came up with happened to be worthless and far from the mark. But the point is, those large corporations try and get away with murder, and often they can. I try as much as I can to avoid working with corporate giants, but it is not always possible.
It is not like large corporation do not like being paid Royalties, GM and Sumitomo have a lock on the NdFeB magnet technology, and they exact 4% royalties from eery single product manufactured (more if you want a license for the very high end part of the business).
Zeev |
