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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.
Sounds more like theft than eminent domain. With eminent domain, the government takes your stuff but has to give you market value for it. Here, they're just taking patents away from the inventor. OK, maybe not taking away, but denying the holders of that patent the right to use it in this specific case, which is just as good as taking it away.
If its a foregone conclusion that the 'Government Agency' are using this tech as provided by Lucent then I don't see how 'state secret' can be a problem (or excuse).
If the 'Government Agency' is allowed this holier-than-thou stance then the plaintiff should just be able to ask: Are you using our tech as provided by Lucent? The agency can then just say yay or nay.
I'm pretty sure the value of the defence contract for Lucent isn't any kind of secret so the courts should award a *fair* share of that ammount to the plaintiff if it is found that Lucent infringed their IP.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
So can someone tell me which criteria of fascism we haven't had happen yet.
Are patents evil, or are they good?
...because you know everything has to be one or the other. It's not like some things could be beneficial when applied in certain ways (like traditional patents on non-obvious inventions) and yet be detrimental when used in other ways (patenting business ideas, existing inventions, existing common practices or ideas with "on the internet" appended, software patents, etc.). Can't someone please come up with simple absolute rules for everything so we don't have to think?
It's hard to let Slashdot tell me what to think when they post stories on _both_ sides of an argument!
Yeah we all hate it when a discussion site posts both good and bad things done by a person, organization, or process. That might foster, well discussion.
Man I hope you're trying to be funny, because some days I really can't tell on Slashdot anymore.
No power gives the government the ability to take property from you and give it to someone else without compensation. Yet, in this case, that is the result. Why? It's a loophole, and Lucent has exploited it marvelously.
Consider: The executive priviledge in question (and the court case cited) gives the government the ability to restrict the release of information deemed important to national security. That's all.
How did Lucent exploit this to their advantage? They promised to pay for the technology, signed contracts and everything. Then they simply didn't pay. Now, it's up to the screwed party in this case, the plaintiff, to sue for recompense. The plaintiff brings suit. And, in the course of the trial, the plaintiff requests discovery from Lucent to verify it's claims and help make it's case.
Uh-oh. Here's where Big Brother steps in. The government says "you can't talk about that" to the courts, and to both parties. Now what is the plaintiff supposed to do? What evidence can he use? There's probably a contract that details specific technology that they now can't disclose. If they blot out the parts that are sensitive, Lucent can use that to claim reasonable doubt. They can't investigate Lucent to find out that they actually took and used said technology, because Lucent can't reveal that information to the court. The plaintiff is completely screwed, against all logic and reason.
I especially love the quote from the Lucent representative: "You can't try this case in your publication". They understand the issues well enough to know how to screw people; and they did it intentionally.
This is becoming more and more common. I have high voltage power lines, 100 ft tall, in my back yard. Yet, I never gave permission to the power company to put them there. I rejected their low offer when they called to try to purchase an easement, and they said "fine". They never filed condemnation proceedings to take the land. They simply built the power lines illegally, over my objections. They can do this because, in Oklahoma, the constitution provides that the maximum damages for them doing so are the same as the cost of the easement. The most it will cost them is what a judge decides the easement is worth. But, now, it's up to me to file suit to get those damages, which means I'll probably just end up with their low offer minus attorney fees.
And they do this as a matter of course, to everyone. It's fascism by definition.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"