If anyone missed it earlier....

One of the examples from my earlier post ( in the link ) 

ntex Plastic Sales Co. v. Charles Hall
According to lead counsel Jack Slobodin, Charles Hall was provoked into pursuing his patent-infringement claim. The California inventor had devised and built the first "modern" water bed in 1968, as part of a master's degree program at San Francisco State University. Years later Intex Plastic Sales Co., a subsidiary of a Taiwanese company, sued Hall in an attempt to declare his patent invalid. Hall countersued on the grounds of infringement. "The case is famous because a group of investors acquired part of Hall's right to enforce the patent," notes cocounsel Edward Wright. In March 1991 a six-person federal jury ruled that from 1982 to 1988, Intex had infringed on Hall's 1971 patent. The jury awarded Hall $4.8 million, about 9.5% of the $50.6 million in revenues Intex had derived from water-bed sales. Ultimately, the damages paid totaled $6.8 million, including interest. One high point of the trial: lawyer Slobodin showed the jury a tape of Hall bouncing on his water bed on an episode of The Dinah Shore Show, circa the late 1970s, in an effort to prove that Hall was indeed recognized as the official inventor of the water-bed design.