In addition to $500,000 prize, there is also a $100,000 Award for Sustainability and $30,000 student prize.
==The Lemelson-MIT Prize Criteria Controversy==
Unfair to people who's company deny them the rights to patents. Often an employee of a corporation who creates a new invention is not only denied the right to manufacture and produce that invention but additionally denied a patent on that invention and the corporation decides to publish the invention. Thus, denying the benefit of a patent to both the inventor and the corporation itself. The award denies nomination of people in this category.
Unfair to people who cannot afford to pay to get their own patent. A very large sector of the population who invents is unable to afford getting a United States Patent due to income of minimum wage of USD$5. Making a life, supporting a family and paying for a patent plus periodic fees in the tens of thousands USD$ and a lawyer to help you get it (another USD$10,000) is virtually impossible unless a person is rich or a corporation funds the patent effort.
Unfair to people who are not corporate royalty. Often people who are not main event personnel, corporate royalty, are denied benefits issued to others within a corporation. The right to being issued a patent on an invention is one such benefit. This right to a patent is often denied to people who are not corporate royalty. In such cases, the corporation chooses to publish the Inventor's invention thus denying them the rights to the invention as well as the benefit of a patent.
Unfair to people who have the greatest inventions but are not wealthy nor are corporate royalty. There are people out there with great inventions who get no credit for inventing such, nor the benefits thereof as a result of not being able to afford a patent or not being corporate royalty.
The Lemelson MIT Award has been often criticized for these social inequities which are promoted by the controlling boards.
