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

Emminent domain would be a FAIRER solution

[abb3w]

Goverment declares that the patent has state secrecy implications. Government exercises emminent domain over the patent, and pays them a "fair" (well, laughable) sum. Patent spends the rest of its natural(?) life on a shelf, military applications aside. Lucent and the Government are happy, and the inventor at least is resigned to a clear foundation for the decision in the letter of the constitution (5th amendment).

Of course, doing this would make major patent holders a little more nervous, but it's still a more equitable resultion under the rule of law than "no, you can't sue him, even though you're getting screwed." In the meanwhile, all these guys can do under the current mess is fall back on "peacable petition for redress of grievances"... which is not likely to be effective in this political climate.