[TriLUG] Thomas Edison and Patents

[Danielle]

On 2013-05-01 16:38, Bill Farrow wrote:

> I'm sure he did, and so did his lawyers and detectives hunting down
> infringement of his patents.  Edison knew how to make the patent
> system work to his advantage: buying other peoples patents to
> strengthen his own position, and aggressive licensing of devices that
> he had no interest in manufacturing himself.  Hello Hollywood.

That reminds me of an experience I had at a past job. A colleague and I 
worked some long hours to get a single sign-on system working and bring 
in the first service. At the core of it was a portal for an ERP 
solution, and we, jointly, authored a presentation for the that ERP's 
user group. My manager, however, decided that only my college would be 
credited in the presentation.

Soon after this I had my duties as assigned expanded to include some 
low-level DBA tasks, meaning I was a SysAdmin who was also dealing with 
a lot of computer room operator and DBA tasks; a combination none of the 
other SAs had, and which meant that I was alone among the SAs in not 
participating in project work as I was required to deal with too many 
other, heavily interrupt-driven tasks. The response I received from my 
manager when I pushed for changes to this demonstrated that they were 
using me to avoid hiring another operator and DBA, and doing so while 
keeping me in a position where they could justify suppressing my pay.

Regards,
Danielle