Who owns post it

That never panned out, but in the process of testing various new formulations, Silver discovered that one, in particular, demonstrated low-tack properties and could be easily removed from surfaces it had adhered to, including paper, without any tearing.

On the microscopic level, the adhesive was made of tiny acrylic spheres that would retain their stickiness even after being repeatedly applied to and removed from a surface. But it was when they started to use the sticky sheets for sharing notes and messages, the pair realized the potential of their creation.

As for the iconic choice of Canary Yellow for the product which makes the notes very visible? Silver went on to work for 3M for 28 years, and when he retired in his name was on over 22 US patents and he received several awards, including the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention in Amron and it is false and misleading for him to state or suggest that he created, invented, or had any role in the product's development," said company spokeswoman Donna L.

Fleming Runyon in an email. On Friday, Runyon added that 3M was within its rights under the previous settlement to claim credit for creating the Post-it Note. Fry, now 84 and retired, is named as a defendant in Amron's lawsuit, but Silver is not.

Fry did not respond to an email and a phone message seeking comment. Silver also is retired, Runyon said. The history of invention is full of people competing for credit for the same idea, and often things come about because smart people are working separately.

Take the microchip: Texas Instruments TXN and Fairchild Semiconductor battled for a decade in court over who came first and deserved the patent, deciding amid the wrangling it was best to work out a licensing deal for both companies. Amron said his idea in came about with chewing gum.

He was looking for a way to stick a note on his refrigerator for his wife and used gum, providing inspiration for the adhesive he would use on his Press-on Memo. That year he took the sticky notes to a New York trade show and met briefly with two 3M executives, Amron said, but nothing came of the meeting. Whatever inventions come out of an internal hackathon are clearly owned by the firm and go into its win column.

But suppose those same creative, talented employees like to relax by participating in public, external hackathons. They are going to form teams with people they may have never met before, brainstorm together, generate at least a proof-of-concept prototype product, and then publically disclose it, all in the course of one weekend. The disclosure may torpedo any chance of patenting, at least outside the US, whatever they invent.

Short of that, it may be unclear who contributed what, and who has proper claim to the invention. One option is simply to prohibit employees from participating in external hackathons. This approach probably makes the most sense for certain types of businesses, such as those concerned with software development. But for many businesses the danger of such a strict policy is that it can alienate talented employees interested in participating in hackathons on their own time.

For example:.