The dispute I had with Nextest was that I had invented a couple of things while working on smart cards and a bunch of people got to share the credit and get in on the patent.

I hold the same view as Dr. William Shockley, inventor of the transistor, that the person who actually has the idea and figures out how to make it work is the one who should get the credit. This is something that Ayn Rand would agree with, that there really is such a thing as intellectual property, and the creator of the idea is the one and only person who should be named on the patent. Without my creations (the palette AWG and the auto-dialogging state machine) the Nextest Smart Card tester could not have been created, no matter how many engineers they had working on the project.

But what makes me special? Well, I had always found it interesting to delve into the hard to understand areas. I figured out the GenRad Algorithmic Pattern Generator, wrote many patterns and created a training class for it. I figured out how to use the Packet AWG on the Credence Duo and create an NTSC TV signal with it. With that background (and little formal training) I was able to figure out how to use a plain-jane AWG to create the Smart Card waveforms on the fly using software. Unfortunately the AWG memory was too small to be useful, but it lead me to the concept of creating Smart Card waveforms in "packets", chunks of waveform data that could be concatenated together at will to create any sequence. Only I did this, and therefore only I could have come up with the idea. It was my work that resulted in the invention, thus, it's my invention, and I deserve sole credit because no one helped me figure it out.

There are many sources of information on the web by patent attorneys regarding "inventorship". Here is a passage from one, however many such sources state the same thing:

An inventor is one who "conceives" and either personally or through someone else actually or constructively reduces the invention to practice. The conception of an invention is complete if the inventor is able to make a disclosure that would enable one skilled in the art to actually make the invention without extensive research or experimentation. One who merely constructs the invention based on the inventor's conception is not an inventor.

And the stakes are high, to again quote from a patent attorney:

Failure to name the correct "inventorship entity" can result in the invalidation of the patent.

The fact that they included not only the hardware engineers who did the actual implementation of my ideas in the patent, but also included a software engineer who had NOTHING to do with the invention really pissed me off. Sure, he was on the team, but he didn't have anything to do with the hardware, and only I had the ideas that allowed anyone to even play a part. In other words, without my brain, these people wouldn't be able to create anything to do the job. The creation is mine, it belongs to me (and yes, Nextest because they paid me to rent my brain for 8 hours a day), but it is my property.

So you say, fine, well too bad Dan, everybody is on the patent and that's the way it is. How can I fight them? Well, I didn't, I just left. I took my creative tool, my mind and applied it elsewhere, which punishes the thieves for taking my invention and using the power of my mind to boost their sad little egos and resumes. Ayn Rand would call it a Shrug, like in Atlas Shrugged. If people want to take my ideas, my property, or my rights, and if I can't fight them any other way, I will stop producing, I will shrug and let the world try to get by without me and my creations. Will it matter? Probably, but because stupid people can't tell how stupid they are, and that people deprived of a tool never notice that it's missing, they won't notice. But I will, I will know that the world could have been a better place if I could have used my mind to make it better. Others will know too, but not the bad people.

I have actually seen letters to the local newspaper suggesting that scientists and engineers be FORCED to find a solution to global warming or war or deforestation or whatever. I love it! "Liberals", or as Shockley called them, "Inverted Liberals" proposing forced labor, forcing someone to work on a problem and invent without their consent, and no doubt severely punishing them if they fail to invent. Folks, that's what they did in the Soviet Union, in China, in Vietnam. Didn't work so good did it? Plus it's inhuman and cruel. Better to lavish money, praise and recognition on someone who invents, that's what our system is supposed to do. But apparently there are Communists at Nextest who think that everyone is identical, and that no one person is more valuable than any other. Too bad...