Gertrude Versus Goliath

NEWS NATURE|Vol 452|10 April 2008 SHOWBIZ NEWS Richard Who? Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is to follow in the acting footsteps of Derek Jacobi and Kylie Minogue — not to mention his wife, Lalla Ward — by making a guest appearance on the Gertrude versus Goliath legendary British sci-fi series Doctor Who. His late friend Douglas Adams, a Who script An octogenarian physicist is taking on the Dreier, a New York firm. “We believe that editor, would have been delighted. world’s largest electronics companies, which, her patent covers the only viable commercial she claims, have infringed her patent for mak- process,” he says. The companies contacted by ing blue and ultraviolet light-emitting diodes Nature declined to comment on the case. SCORECARD (LEDs) and short-wavelength laser diodes. Rothschild has taken on the electronics Brazilian contraception On 20 March, the International Trade Com- industry before. In 2005, she filed suit in federal The government aims to mission, which oversees imports court against two other compa- safeguard the Amazon to the United States, announced nies: Toyoda Gosei of Japan and by marketing condoms made it would investigate a complaint and Philips Lumiled. Both were from sustainably harvested filed by Gertrude Neumark settled out of court. But the trade rubber trees in the forest. Rothschild, a professor emeritus commission complaint is fur- K. TANNENBAUM at Columbia University in New ther-reaching than the previous US health information York City. The complaint names suits. If the commission finds in A US government- some 30 companies, including her favour then it may order the funded health- Sony, Toshiba and Motorola. companies to cease and desist information search engine called Rothschild was awarded a production, or ban the import, Popline last week blocked all patent for a process used to Gertrude Rothschild. of equipment that contains the hits relating to the search term make wide-band-gap semicon- relevant technologies. ‘abortion’, only reinstating them ductors in 1993. She had found an affordable Rothschild says that she filed the complaint after a public outcry. way of making the semiconductors’ resistivity in part to raise awareness of women’s role in low enough to make them commercially useful. science. “People don’t pay too much attention It eventually allowed green, blue and ultraviolet unless there’s a financial impact,” she says. ON THE RECORD LEDs and solid-state lasers to become common This is not the first time that blue LEDs have It was a big bit of components in everything from mobile phones been the subject of an intellectual-property dis- gear“ and it got pretty to the latest generation of DVD players. pute. In 2004, a Tokyo court awarded Nichia warm. Exactly how companies are producing the Corporation researcher Shuji Nakamura ” diodes is unknown because of trade secrets ¥20 billion (US$180 million) for his role in Hafsteinn Jonsson, one of the protection, but there is good reason to believe their development. This was later reduced to Swedish team that helped to create the world’s first ever 40-gigabit-per- that Rothschild’s process is being used, accord- ¥840 million after appeal. ■ second Internet connection, explains ing to Albert Jacobs, the physicist’s lawyer at Geoff Brumfiel why its recipient, the mother of a M. THOMAS colleague, used it to dry her laundry. The fraudster returns … German academic Hans Werner Gottinger, it has never employed him and does not host whose penchant for inventing academic such an institute. It is considering whether affiliations to promote his career was to take the matter beyond a formal request exposed by Nature last year, seems to be up to desist. to his old tricks. Eurosis had accepted Gottinger’s proposal, This week, the German environmental which was included in the organization’s ZOO NEWS economist was to run a 15-hour workshop annual Future Business Technology Strong bond for the Belgian organization Eurosis, at the conference, on 9–11 April. Philippe Geril, A loggerhead turtle, badly University of Porto in Portugal. But the secretary-general of Eurosis, says that at injured when it washed up on a workshop was abandoned after the Ostend- the beginning of March, the University of British beach, has been saved based organization, which runs conferences Porto alerted the organization to potential … by a dentist. The turtle, and services promoting modelling and problems. Gottinger withdrew from nicknamed James Bond after his simulation, discovered that Gottinger was participation when Geril asked for more official stranding number (007), not the university professor he claimed to be. details of his affiliation. Gottinger did not damaged his shell on rocks Gottinger told Nature last August that he respond to Nature’s request for clarification. thousands of kilometres from his was in ‘semi-retirement’ (see Nature 448, Gottinger has held many real academic warmer home waters, and was 632–633; 2007). But when he applied to run appointments at top universities and patched up using a compound more commonly used to protect the Eurosis workshop just a few months research institutes, but frequently used false delicate dental work. later, he claimed to be a professor at the claims on his CV to acquire them. He has Technical University of Munich in Germany also been accused of extensive plagiarism, ■ Sources: The Independent, BBC, Wired — specifying that he was director of the including 13 confirmed cases. STRATEC Institute. The university says that Alison Abbott SIDELINES blogs, The Local, The Times 672.

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