On September 18, 1957, Blank, Grinich, Kleiner, Last, Moore, Noyce, Roberts and Hoerni resigned from Shockley Labs. They became known as the "traitorous eight", though it is not known who coined the term. Shockley could never understand the reasons for this defection. After that time, he never talked to Noyce again, but continued to follow the work of "The Eight". He also combed through all records left by The Eight, basing patents, held as Shockley Labs' intellectual property, on any important ideas. (Technically, in accordance with U.S. law, those patents were issued to the respective inventing employees.)