When my father was working he worked for a large corporation doing research for them.  One of his assignments was to come up with a way to put carbonated drinks into a can without the acid in the drink eating through the can.  If this could be done the industry would save millions in the cost of recycling the glass bottles.  He worked on the project for years and finally developed a process for doing it.  Because he was an employee he had to reassign the patents to his company as soon as they were granted.  Dad got a small bonus and they started saving millions.