Eminent Domain Applied to IP Due To State Secrets

NormalVisual writes "Wired recently ran a story about a group of inventors that found themselves unable to sue Lucent Technologies for infringement of a patent they held on a novel design for a pipe/cable connector. They had been working with Lucent on an underwater application for this connector, but unfortunately for the inventors, Lucent's application was being developed for an as-yet-unnamed branch of the U.S. government. The government is now claiming a state-secret privilege, and is refusing to let the inventors sue Lucent for patent infringement, citing national security concerns. In the meantime, Lucent continues to directly profit from their invention without paying any royalties or other compensation. The patent in question can be found online. It's doubly a shame because, unlike so many other patents that we've seen here, this one is actually creative and non-obvious." We've touched on this topic before.

Comments

There is no pleasing you people

[TrappedByMyself]

Our government decides not to enforce evil patent law, and you all still bitch and moan about it. That small company is trying to hurt national security with their intellictual property claims, probably terrorists they are, and our government steps in and saves the day.

Isn't this exactly what you've been screaming for with all these anti-patent stories!?!

Ungrateful.