Slashdot // Eminent Domain Applied to IP Due To State Secrets

Gizmo · 24-September-05, 03:52 AM

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.http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot?m=740

Pharaoh · 24-September-05, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewsBot


	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.http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot?m=740

Just more of "BIG brother" getting into the lives of the masses.

24-September-05, 03:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
Gizmo News Hound Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Floating among Data streams, waiting for the right moment Posts: 44,023	Slashdot // 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.http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot?m=740

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