From Tom Jackson
The revelation that the breathtaking advances accomplished by Henrik Schön at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs were fabricated got me thinking (5 October, p 4). Did Schön and his colleagues file any patent applications on his work, and are any of these available in the published literature?
US patent 6284562 has graphs very similar to those of the fabricated data reproduced in your piece. The patent covers the invention of thin film transistors by Schön, Bertram Batlogg and colleagues and was published 4 September 2001. On 5 September 2002, the same group filed US patent application 20020121669 describing the invention of a superconducting switching device based on C60 molecules.
Patent attorneys sometimes joke when asked what their job is that it is to write science fiction. In this case, the joke may have come true. Bell Labs having fired Schön, one wonders what will happen to the patent cases he is associated with.
Eugenie Samuel writes: Lucent Technologies withdrew this patent application and 5 other patent applications based on Schön’s work at Bell Labs last week. The patent that was granted is actually held by a spin-off company of Lucent Technologies called Agere Systems of Orlando, Florida. As New Scientist went to print Agere Systems spokeswoman Vibha Agrawal had no statement on whether the company was prepared to enforce the patent or not.
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