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Links: The Forgotten Inventor of Surround Sound
Posted by Steven Wu on Monday, November 03 @ 02:21:10 EST Patent
The St. Petersburg Times has a pretty sad story about Peter Schreiber, the inventor who was the first to invent surround sound. The basic theme of the story is that big corporations, including Dolby and Harman Kardon, take advantage of little inventors despite the "protections" of the patent system.
It was in that same house on Crompond Road, in that same year, that Peter gave a demonstration of his new product to the founder of a growing tape noise-reduction company, Ray Dolby. . . .

This is how Peter remembers the visit: "He said, "Peter, the whole industry is annoyed with you because you won't tell how this works.' So I told him how it works. What a sucker I was." . . .

[Dolby then used surround sound technology for the Star Wars movies in 1977.] It wasn't until 1980 that Peter's patent attorney took notice, advising Peter that Dolby's technology seemed to be using Peter's technology. Peter made repeated attempts to contact Dolby Labs about licensing it, but was rebuffed.

So in 1983, he sued for patent infringement.

The article is written by Schreiber's cousin, so it is slightly more sympathetic than I think the facts strictly merit (Schreiber did make a lot of money in his heyday, and that money should not have been easy to lose), but it's still worth a read. The article is here.
 
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