Judge revives Zoltek lawsuit

A Federal Appeals judge has revived the Zoltek v US lawsuit initially filed in 1996. The suit claims that the US government used a patented process to develop the B-2 and F-22. The process involves making carbon fiber more resistant to electrical charges in the manufacturing process. The patent was invalidated in 2014, when a judge ruled that scientists knew that temperatures used in making carbon fiber would affect resistance, however that ruling was reversed when a memo from Northrop in 1987 was shown, stating that engineers had never seen a material of the type used by a company bought by Zoltek.

The government is using the military and state secrets privilege to prevent giving information on either aircraft's stealth coatings. Even under tight rules, they say it would be possible for information to get into the wrong hands. Zoltek claims that a fiber known as Tyrrano, used on the F-22 violates the patent.

After 20 years, a St. Louis company may finally get its chance to prove that the Pentagon used its technology to make stealth combat aircraft stealthy without paying for it.
An appeals court on Friday revived a patent-infringement suit that Zoltek Corp. first filed in March 1996. The court said a judge erred in ruling the patent invalid, and ordered a hearing on whether the F-22 fighter plane and B-2 bomber used a Zoltek invention.
The U.S. government is invoking the military and state secrets privilege on the advanced aircraft and their classified technology, contending it must keep information about them from being disclosed to protect national security.

www.bloomberg.com...

www.cafc.uscourts.gov...

Which begs the question, does the DOD just ignore patents when it pleases them, or, more to the point, when they think they can get away with it.

Nice OP.

P

a reply to: pheonix358

I'm sure they have lawyers looking for loopholes around intellectual property rights but the cost of legit infringement can be higher than the cost of buying the rights to that intellectual property in the first place.
They might get away with it against small companies that don't have a lot of resources to expend on costly legal fees to go against the gov., against the big contractors with armies of lawyers though, maybe not so yeah, when they think they can get away with it.

Zoltek stock has gone up, after every new Stealth plane.

Watch their stock, then, look up.

News like this are f**** driving me nuts
Sorry mod have nothing good to say here

Some engineers are not commercially savvy, plenty of times I have had to push specifications to our IP lawyers because I have heard something not quite right.

It always pays to check, imagine if Raytheon come looking at your training facility and say, hey these are all our panels you have copied without permission, and you Bae sold it to the RAF....

I hope if it was copied the inventor gets what they deserve.