Shunpei Yamazaki
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Shunpei Yamazaki is a Japanese inventor in the field of computer science and solid-state physicist. He holds over 1,400 U.S. patents – more than any other person [1].
Yamazaki is the president and majority shareholder of research company Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) in Tokyo. Most of the patents he holds are in relation to computer display technology and held by SEL, with Yamazaki named either individually or jointly as inventor [2].
Aside from his prolific patents, Yamazaki is also famed - or infamous - for his involvement in SEMICONDUCTOR ENERGY LABORATORY CO., LTD., v. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.[3], where SEL sued Samsung for patent infringement in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. SEL initially won, but Samsung appealed and the appeal was upheld, voiding SEL's claims of infringement.
The United States Court of Appeals decision savaged SEL regarding its original patent application. The Court cited numerous examples of "inequitable conduct" before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), e.g. that:
1) SEL had "intentionally withheld" a reference from the PTO
2) SEL had "intentionally misled" a patent examiner
The Court lambasted Yamazaki for his actions:
"The district court cited multiple facts as demonstrating SEL's deceitful intent. For example, Dr. Yamazaki could not satisfactorily account for his misstatement of the level of impurities discussed in U.S. Patent No. 4,766,477 to Nakagawa ("the Nakagawa reference")... The district court similarly discredited Dr. Yamazaki’s claim that he did not comprehend the significance of the Tsai article, since he had described a speech by Dr. Tsai discussing her work as "spectacular," had requested the article from Dr. Tsai in October 1983, and had cited it in a 1984 article in the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids."[4]
"As a general matter, we first note that the district court found Dr. Yamazaki and SEL's other witnesses to be not credible."[5]
"The evidence demonstrates a sophisticated, subtle, and consistent effort to hide the ball from the PTO in a manner plainly at odds with an applicant's duty of candor, good faith, and honesty. The record, as a whole, simply contains too many instances of information withheld, and references mischaracterized, to reach any conclusion other than that the withholding and mischaracterizations were part of an intentional, not accidental or inadvertent, plan to mislead the PTO."[6]
