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The American dream has come true for a lone US inventor who is striving
to force large electronics companies to honour his patents. Gilbert Hyatt
from La Palma, California, has signed a deal with Philips that makes him
a millionaire overnight and gives him a platform from which to challenge
companies which deny that his patents apply to them.

Hyatt has worked for more than 20 years from a small laboratory, patenting
ideas and subcontracting the production of microchips to companies in Silicon
Valley.

He has now sold Philips the right to use 23 of his patents and a number
that are still pending. Fourteen patents cover microcomputer technology
and nine involve liquid crystal displays. Many of today’s personal computers,
TVs, video recorders, microwave ovens and cars already rely on components
covered by Hyatt’s patents. Philips believes more and more will do so in
future.

His big break came last year when the US Patent Office granted a patent
which he had first filed in 1970. This patent covers the concept of building
all the processing power of a computer onto a single chip. This practice
is now routine in most desk top computers.

Over the intervening 20 years, patent office examiners challenged Hyatt’s
claims with 46 prior patents and magazine articles. Hyatt stuck to his guns
and in July 1990 won acceptance of a patent with 40 claims. During the legal
battle Hyatt continued researching and filed additional patents covering
improvements to his basic single microchip design.

The major chip makers, Intel, Texas Instruments and Motorola were not
impressed by Hyatt’s claims. ‘He seems to have achieved his fifteen minutes
of fame,’ said Texas Instruments’ Stan Victor when Hyatt won his claims.

But instead of attacking the companies, he approached the North American
Philips Corporation, a subsidiary of Philips in the Netherlands. NAPC’s
lawyers analysed his patents and judged them sound. In payment for infringing
Hyatt’s patents, Philips agreed to pay him a reduced lump sum and to take
on the job of licensing the patents to other companies.

This leaves Hyatt free to get on with research, while the heavyweight
legal department at Philips takes on any company infringing Hyatt’s claims.

Philips estimates that Hyatt’s patents will earn him ‘several hundred
million dollars’. Charles McHenry, a spokesman for Hyatt, says the cash
from Philips is being ploughed back into research. ‘I still can’t get him
to spend any money on himself. He has bought new seat covers for his ten-year-old
Toyota car, but is still patching the carpet at home, instead of replacing
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