California Demands $55 Million from Microprocessor Inventor : The state has been harassing him for decades

Reason reports:

Business owners who have fled California often say their decision to leave wasn’t just about tax rates, but about the punitive attitudes sometimes found among tax and regulatory authorities here. A new wrinkle in a high-profile, 22-year-old tax case gives fodder to those who make such claims.


In 1970, a young Southern California electrical engineer and inventor named Gilbert Hyatt filed a patent application for an innovative microprocessor chip. That was a year before Intel patented its chip, which led to the personal-computer revolution.

Twenty years later, after a complex legal battle over the origins of that technology, the U.S. patent office awarded Hyatt the patent for a microprocessor — a shocking and still controversial decision (that was later partially overturned) that would provide Hyatt with a multimillion-dollar windfall. He moved to Las Vegas, where he said he was a full-time resident before he received the earnings.

Just a reminder.