Worel
Copyright© 2012 by JAMES HEART
Chapter 4
MIT offered Charlie a position on the faculty, an annual salary of one hundred fifty thousand dollars, and a million more to equip a lab in any way he wanted. Tulane topped that offer. Tulane would spend ten million dollars to equip Charlie's lab, and would assign ten post docs to work for him. And Charlie would have complete autonomy for five years.
Charlie and his lawyer met with Tulane's President, the head of the Material Science Department, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
Charlie addressed the three. "Single-walled nano tubes can be either conductors or semiconductors. When they are conductors, they can conduct large currents with very little heating. The conductive property of single-walled nano tubes is determined by their diameter and the way they are wound into tubes. The challenge is to control these properties during the manufacture of nano tubes.
My paper defined the likely properties of sheets of nano tube assemblies. If Tulane and I had the technology to manufacture such sheets, we would have every semiconductor manufacturer lining up to buy our products. We would have orders for five billion dollars worth of sheets of carbon nano tube every year.
My employment contract calls for Tulane to get half of any revenue from any patents that I am granted while at Tulane. I want to modify that contract.
I propose that Tulane and I share all nano sheet technology per the existing contract. But I want to develop continuous carbon nano tube fiber technology on my own, in my own facilities, on my own time. I want Tulane to acknowledge that if I do so develop nano continuous fiber technology, that Tulane will not challenge my ownership of the resulting patents."
The meeting went on for three hours. One month later, Charlie had his contract. Six months later, Charlie and his postdocs discovered how to manufacture carbon nano tube sheets with any properties they desired. Within the year, Tulane and Charlie sold his half ownership in the technology to IBM for two billion dollars.
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