Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War

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Summary: Courtroom Combat in TechTown
Review: I had heard intriguing snippets about the strange story of Gordon Gould and the laser, so this book went automatically onto my reading list as soon as I learned that Taylor had written it.

If the laser were an ordinary device like the phonograph or the sewing machine, its undisputed father would be Theodore Maiman of Hughes Aircraft, who designed and built the first operational example (a strobe-pumped ruby rod) in 1960. In the realm of highly scientific inventions, however, things are not so straightforward. The line of credit, including honors and prizes, tends to favor the people who first publish guiding principles, whether or not they actually get anything to work. In the U.S. this point of view spills over into patents, and the initial winner in the race for a broad laser patent was not Maiman but Charles Townes, a distinguished physicist who had invented the maser (a coherent microwave amplifier) and published ideas for extending the concept to visible frequencies, i.e. creating an optical maser.

In 1957 a late-blooming Columbia graduate student named Gordon Gould was suddenly struck by an inspiration for solving the optical maser problem. He subsequently made a number of mistakes in judgment, but failing to document his work was not one of them. He carefully recorded his ideas in a signed and witnessed lab notebook. He even anticipated the acronym "LASER" (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). Ironically, one of the professors he occasionally interacted with was Charles Townes.

Taylor's book covers the three-decade saga of Gordon Gould's fight for recognition by the United States Patent Office. In a sense the story pits a classic "loser" (Gould) against a classic "winner" (Townes). In the end, neither of those stereotypes matter. The final outcome is governed only by facts on record, the communication skills of the principals and their lawyers, and the sometimes murky mental processes of patent examiners and judges. The twists and turns that lead to that outcome, as expertly navigated by the author, provide a pretty good primer in practical patent law as well as in the basics of laser technology. The human side of the seemingly luckless Gould is also vividly explored. We see that he is usually underestimated by those who don't know him well, and admired by those who do.

The author is not neutral, but he is convincing, and also conscientious about providing a good factual basis for the reader to judge whether or not this landmark intellectual property case was justly decided.

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Summary: O.J. SimpsonAlso Won in Court
Review: I must admit a prejudice against Gordon Gould and his claim to have invented the laser. I have been a target of the Patlex Corporation's high-handed and bullying tactics, even though I have never challenged Patlex legally nor attempted to circumvent their royalty requirements. Mr. Taylor's book is certainly of value--it is the first document I have read which describes Mr. Gould's life and work in any detail--but I am afraid that I leave its pages still unconvinced. More than anything else, the book labors to confirm my suspicion that trial attorneys are often nothing more than robbers, assaulting their victims with courtrooms rather than with handguns. I imagine that when Dr. Charles Townes walked out of that courtroom in Orlando, he probably felt like he had been mugged. Theodore Maiman, the Hughes physicist who created the first working laser, has almost taken personal blame for Gould's victory--he elected not to testify at the Orlando trial, which he describes as a "travesty of justice." Borrowing the words of Stan Augarten, who applied them to a similar priority battle in the development of the electronic computer, a lawsuit is one thing and historical judgment another. Maiman and Townes and Schawlow have lost their legal claims to the invention of the laser, but their historical position is unshakable.

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Summary: Fascinating. A real world techno-thriller.
Review: I wrote a review of this book for Wired Magazine, December 2000, p. 370, in the Streetcred section, under the title "Flash of Recognition." I won't repeat it all here, since you can find it online.

Basically, I loved the book. I state that "As told by Nick Taylor in Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War, the story makes for a ripping yarn. Taylor manages to weave together the scientific workings of lasers, the intricacies of the US patent system, and the strange details of Gordon Gould's quirks and predicaments." Except for one minor quibble, I conclude that "Taylor does a great job of pulling together science, law, business, and human drama." If you're interested in those things, in a story made suspenseful even if you happen to know how it comes out, then you'll enjoy Nick Taylor's book.

-Edward Samuels, author of The Illustrated Story of Copyright (December 2000)

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Summary: O.J. SimpsonAlso Won in Court
Review: Legal victory is not always a guarantee of truth. Sure, David going up against Goliath to win millions of dollars makes for a great read. In this case, however, it simply didn't happen that way. Schawlow, Townes, Maiman, et al. have contributed many, many other things to the field (in fact, Schawlow's Nobel was for research primarily in the 1970's). What has Gould done? He spent his time villifying and stealing credit (Schawlow and Townes never received royalty payments on the laser because of contractual obligations to Bell Labs). The best way to read this book is as a biased work of fiction.

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Summary: An inside look at invention and the patent process
Review: This is a fascinating story. It takes the reader on a revealing ride through the sometimes mysterious world of physicists and inventors, patents, and the personal pain of losing "first rights." It doesn't stop there, however, but tells of a remarkable decades-long battle by G. Gould to uphold his 1959 patent and collect his "pot of gold"--the royalties now associated with the use of laser technologies.

Keep in mind that the story is interesting partly because it favors the viewpoint of "the little guy winning out in the end." In fact, the historical record has revealed many other sides that are not documented in "Laser," perhaps because of space or because the author didn't want to break the tempo of the narrative.

Some of the information not fully documented in "Laser" includes 1957 conversations between Gould and Townes about patent processes and technology and the fact that Gould has admitted he had access to Townes' and Schawlow's laser designs circulated late in 1958. There are also questions surrounding the claimed "classified" nature of Gould's projects for TRG. All of which would make good reading.

Hopefully Taylor's book will interest enough readers that the publisher will let the author update the record, showing that there are even more sides to this amazing story--that Gould was an ambitious graduate student partly motivated by a desire for fame and fortune.

If you're looking for a readable insight into the motivation for invention, the patent system, and mankind's determined quest for the honor to be called first, you will enjoy this book. And, with luck, perhaps there will be an update with the as-yet-undocumented twists and turns that make up "the rest of the story".